If you asked me the greatest need in
America right now, I'd say revival.
There's enough born-again believers in America to
turn the world upside down for Christ, who
had the right kind of Christians.
But his son, he used to say, what
the world needs is not more men, but
a better brand.
He also said what the church needs is
not a lot of new members so much
as they need a lot of the old
members made new.
He's probably right about that.
But if everybody in America that had trusted
Jesus Christ as Savior was in church on
Sunday morning with their Bible in their hand,
and their tithing, and their tithing envelope, all
the orphanages would be filled next week, and
the churches would have more money than anything
they knew what to do with.
And now the church building in America could
hold the crowd.
We had 8,000 members in our church
in Atlanta, Georgia, and I built an auditorium
to seat 2,563.
You say, why did Bill want to seat
8,000?
Because 5,000 of them never came.
Oh, they came occasionally, but the average crowd
is about 3,300 on Sunday morning.
Always 5,000 members absent every single Sunday.
There's not a business in the state of
Florida that would try to operate tomorrow morning
if they had the same percentage of absentees
that the best-attended church had last Sunday
morning.
There's not a school in the state of
Florida that would carry on classes tomorrow if
they had the same percentage of absentees that
the best-attended church had last Sunday morning.
And we wonder why we're not doing any
better than what we do.
I think we're doing pretty good for the
participants we have in our activities.
Somebody said, the average church is like an
ailing lung with only a few cells doing
the breathing, and I think the absolute derivative
of it.
Revival.
I read about great revivals in my day.
The revivals were not in my day, but
I read them in my day.
I read about the revival in Wales.
Such a great revival in Wales, they said
when the revival ended they had to re
-educate the mules.
The miners that had driven the mules down
the mine had cursed the mules so bad
that they got saved and changed their language.
The mules didn't understand what they were saying.
When I read that, I laughed just like
you just laughed, and I thought to myself,
Lord, I sure would have liked to live
back then.
I'd like to have been a part of
that revival that not only swept the community,
but swept an entire nation.
The closer home than that was Revivals of
Billy Sunday.
I was snowed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania one day
and could not get out.
In my briefcase I had a book entitled
Billy Sunday, The Man and His Message.
And I read it, the entire book I
read in that airport.
And I read in that book about a
revival in Allegheny County in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
It started in January and went through March,
three months, and the cold is part of
the year.
In a temporary building that they had built
just for the revival meeting.
And I read where 48,000 people were
saved in that revival meeting.
And I read that after the revival was
over, one church got 1,000 new members,
and their building would only seat 250.
And they had to build a brand new
auditorium just to house the converts that came
out of the Billy Sunday revival.
I also read that during the three months
Billy Sunday was in Allegheny County, that there
were 600 less people in the jails of
Allegheny County than there had been in the
same three-month period before Billy Sunday came
to town.
I read that and I thought, Jesus, was
that a certain dispensation or something?
The truth of the matter, it was not.
God could do the same thing today.
Malachi 3, 6 says, I am the Lord
thy God, I change not, therefore your sons
of Jacob are not consumed.
They're the same Bible now, same Holy Spirit
now, same God now, same plan of salvation
now, same everything now.
Nothing's changed on God's side of the windows
of heaven.
Has there been any change yet done on
our side of the windows of heaven?
Coming even closer home in my town, Atlanta,
Georgia, there lived a man called a Sears
Roebuck evangelist.
He's still alive.
He worked at Sears Roebuck.
He even studied the Greek language so he
could read the Greek New Testament and did
his devotions by reading it.
What an evangelist he was.
He had a revival in Athens, Georgia, and
2,500 people were saved during that revival
meeting.
And while they had a revival in Athens,
Georgia, I am told that you could not
walk into a business place without hearing somebody
praying, or somebody singing, or seeing somebody leading
someone to Jesus Christ.
Back in those days they had the old
streetcars instead of the buses.
They said you go on a streetcar and
go someplace in town and somebody would start
singing a song, a gospel song, and others
would join in.
They didn't even know each other.
But in a moment the streetcar was filled
with people who made up a small choir
and everybody singing Amazing Grace or some gospel
song.
Revival was everywhere, in the hardware stores, everywhere.
I told that story about that revival down
in Athens, Georgia, and my secretary's father, Mr.
Singleton, told me that he used to work
for Harmel Meats.
He delivered meat down in Athens, Georgia.
And he said, I know something about that
revival.
I was in that town during that time,
he said, and my meat truck broke down.
And he said, I took it to several
mechanics to get it fixed and nobody would
work on it.
They were all so involved in the revival
they wouldn't take time to work on your
automobile.
He said, I had to stay in Athens
two or three days to get out.
Maze Jackson told me, you've heard of Maze
Jackson?
He said, I was riding into Athens, Georgia.
I heard this little squeaky voice on the
radio.
Rapid fire delivery, he said.
It so arrested my attention I pulled off
the side of the highway and just listened
to the man preach.
I told the story of that revival and
a man in my church came to me
and said, I know that man.
He said, I worked at Georgia Baptist Hospital.
I was a steam fitter.
He said, one day I was on the
machines working and my friends were working with
me and he said, suddenly I sensed the
presence of someone or something in that building.
He said, I dropped my wrench.
He said, I looked and my buddies were
dropping their wrenches and we were staring at
each other as if to say, what's going
on in here?
And then the silence was broken when our
supervisor said, man, I want you to come
out on the machines.
I want you to meet someone.
And this deacon in my church told me
they introduced me to the man and called
the man's name to held a revival in
Athens, Georgia.
I was out soul winning one night in
Atlanta, Georgia, knocked on the door, talked to
why I was a man and then asked
this question.
If you die today, do you know you'll
go to heaven?
Oh yes, I know that.
I'm sure of that.
Asked him how he was sure.
He told me how.
Gave me a good answer.
Then I said, tell me how you got
saved.
He said, I went to a revival meeting
and I heard, and he called this evangelist's
name, said, I heard him preach on hell.
He said, I declare I believe I could
smell the sulfur burning.
I believe I could smell the smoke while
the man preached on hell.
I believe I could actually feel the fires
enough that it frightened me so bad that
I went home and couldn't sleep that night.
He said, the second night I could not
sleep.
Several nights I didn't sleep at all.
And then I was sleeping an hour or
two.
He said, this went on not for a
year, not for two years.
He said, for seven long years, I never
slept one night all the way through without
waking up and thinking about that sermon on
hell for seven years.
That sermon haunted me.
Then one night he said, I said, I've
had enough.
And I knelt by my bed and trusted
Jesus Christ as my savior.
I read that.
I heard that man tell that story to
me.
I cried.
I said, Jesus, I'd give anything if I
could preach like that.
I'd give anything if I had such power
in my preaching that a man would not
get away from the sermon for seven years
later, till he trusted Jesus Christ as his
savior.
Today theologians tell us that revivals are past.
You can't have revival now, but I contend
that you can have revival now.
May I say that revivals are not miracles?
Not in the true sense of the word.
I mean by that God does not push
aside certain laws and force revival on you.
It's not a miracle in that sense.
Like God overcomes certain laws and those things
that men cannot explain.
It's not a miracle in that sense of
the word.
May I tell you revival is not an
accident.
I read about the great evangelical awakenings.
I'd find myself wishing I was back there.
And then I'd say, Jesus, why couldn't I
have been there when the showers fell?
Why couldn't I have been present?
I thought revivals were accidents, that you just
had to be in the right place at
the right time when the blessings fell.
But revivals are not accidents.
May I say revival is not an explosion.
We sometimes think we'll get together in the
church and we'll pray and we'll pray and
we'll pray until finally everybody jumps up and
shouts at the same time and runs across
the bed and throws chairs, and revival's on.
No, revival's not an explosion.
A revival is a combustion.
Like striking a match and a little fire
starts.
And then it begins to spread to someone
else, and to someone else, and to someone
else, and to someone else, and finally it's
over the whole church.
After a while it got outside the church
and got in the community, and in some
cases swept the whole country.
In Venice they had swept the whole northeast
section of this country.
I said revival's not a miracle in the
true sense of the word.
No, revival is the result of the proper
use of constituted means.
And God does not leave us ignorant concerning
those means.
In my text tonight, God says, if you'll
do four things, I'll do three.
It's the Word of God.
2 Chronicles 7, 14, Jesus said, Our God
said, If my people, which are called by
my name, shall humble themselves and pray, and
seek my face, and turn from their wicked
ways, then will I hear from heaven, and
will forgive their sins, and will heal their
land.
Does God mean that?
Is God pulling our leg about that?
Is God only kidding us and holding something
out to us that's not real?
Or does God mean what he says?
Somebody says, That was written to the Jews.
That's in the Old Testament.
Yeah, but all scripture is given by inspiration
of God, and it's profitable, the Bible says.
Somebody said, It's in the Old Testament.
I said, Yeah, they begin to breathe in
the Old Testament too.
You want to stop breathing because it's in
the Old Testament?
Hearts begin to beat in the Old Testament
too, you know.
They ate in the Old Testament, you know
that too.
Don't you drink water?
Why relegate it way back there as if
you can't have revival now?
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.
That little verse was written on the desk
of George Mueller, who paid over nine million
dollars in his lifetime for orphanages.
Look at that text again.
It's my people.
Several years ago, somehow they're out if we
could get born-again Christians elected to office.
If we could get right-wing conservatives in
every political office in the country, we'd correct
everything in America, and I'm not mad.
I'm telling the truth.
We had two presidents serve 12 years, both
anti-abortion, and you had just as many
abortions last year as you had the first
year you elected the first president.
You did not have one less.
You're still having a million and a half
abortions every single year in this country.
It did not cure it to have Republican
conservative presidents in the office of 12 years.
That was not the answer because the text
does not say if you'll elect born-again
believers to all the offices, including dog catcher,
who's in office has nothing to do with
revival.
Then we raised up a group that were
anti-abortion, and we should be.
The cruelest thing that ever happened in America,
I think, is this merciless slaughter of a
million and a half unborn babies every year.
In my little town just near me, outside
of Nashville, just out of Murfreesboro, in our
paper, I read where a man went to
abort a little baby, and he didn't succeed
in doing it, but he succeeded in cutting
the baby's arm off, and the woman went
into labor.
She left the abortion clinic, and because the
labor pains went to the doctor, gave birth
to a little one-armed baby that's still
alive right now without an arm.
And the lady sued the abortionist, but if
he had succeeded and got her head through
the arm, she'd have been in a trash
can, no lawsuit.
Sad, sad.
It's strange to me that when the news
media gets ready to turn your opinion against
something in the country, they always show people
up in Alaska clubbing little baby seals with
a cloth in their hand, with a little
spike, and they hit that little seal, and
it runs in the blood, goes in the
snow, and people watch and say, oh, that's
awful, and there's an uprising against killing baby
seals.
How many times have you seen on television
a real live coverage of an abortion, a
suction abortion, where they suck the arm off
the baby, and then the leg off, and
then suck his little head off?
But have you seen that on television?
When have you seen the same insolution that
actually burned the baby to death at his
mother's womb?
Have you seen that on television?
And in Atlanta, Georgia, a politician ran against
abortion and showed some live coverage of little
babies being aborted, and they got an injunction
and made him take it off TV.
You didn't show seals being killed.
You didn't show somebody killing a bald eagle.
You didn't show somebody killing a spotted owl
or a snail daughter.
But we want to turn our backs on
a million and a half babies being killed
every year in abortion countries across America.
And we're singing, God bless America, what a
bunch of hypocrites we are.
What do you call them, hound dogs?
What else?
You cuss them.
I'll say amen.
Terrible, man, terrible.
You could stop abortion tomorrow in America, if
every night on the news report they'd get
three minutes' coverage.
Just show the little bodies in garbage cans
that have been killed.
And if you could run a live camera
and hear one of those babies cry that
didn't die, but got out of his mother's
womb.
One doctor wrote a letter and said he
decided not to do another abortion, because he
heard the baby scream when he laid it
aside.
Now with the news out, I'm in the
Lord.
Funny world, isn't it?
But hold on a minute.
The Bible does not say if you close
down all the abortion clinics, you'll have revival.
The truth of the matter is you can
close down every abortion clinic in America and
never have another, and you won't be one
inch near revival than you are tonight.
That's not the way to revival.
You may clean up that mess when revival
comes, but that's not a prerequisite, that's a
result.
Don't get mad at me, old Benny Sunday.
Drive this country up, about prohibition.
And you hear the politicians talk about appointing
a drug czar.
And we turn our soldiers loose down in
Columbia and other places trying to keep cocaine
and that stuff coming to this country, and
we're ignoring the worst drug of all.
It's right over here in your town on
the shelf in your liquor stores.
Whiskey, liquor.
Getting more people than all the wars put
together.
Getting more people than cocaine and all the
other drugs put together.
Drunk and driver in a stupor, drives down
a highway, runs into a busload of kids
up in Kentucky.
Twenty-something little kids burned to death, including
several adults, and the guy gets off in
a few years on probation because he was
drunk.
I think God must look down sometime at
a country like ours that collects billions and
billions of dollars on taxes for selling booze
and liquor that kills so many people and
divorce their homes and wrecked homes.
How many babies have been abused that did
make it alive into the world?
If you checked up, you'd find behind child
abuse, a drunken father, a drunken mother.
If you checked behind robberies, you'd find a
drunk man that did the robbery.
If you check behind how many hours are
lost from the employer and how much money
is lost because they don't show up for
work, you'd find out billions are lost because
somebody got drunk, can't go to work.
Somebody pays for that.
And all the shoplifting and stealing done by
people to get money to get another drink
of booze.
Liquor's awful.
Billy Sunday said, I'll fight that hellish liquor
traffic as long as I've got breath.
He said to Maul Sunday, he said, as
long as I've got breath, I'll fight that
hellish liquor traffic, and when I'm dead, he
said, they'll all skin me and make drum
covers out of my hides.
He said, march up and down the streets
of America and beat those drums and tell
them Billy Sunday hated the hellish liquor traffic.
I wish we had about 10,000 Billy
Sundays turned loose on America, but we just
let it go.
We just let it go.
You mad?
Yeah.
I'm upset about it.
It troubles me.
I don't want to go on, but the
Texas is not safe.
You clean up all the abortion clinics.
You close down all the liquor stores.
You don't sell any more booze.
You have a revival.
Put them out of there.
You can close down every liquor store tomorrow.
Close every abortion clinic tomorrow, but they are
not stopping revival from coming to our country.
How many born again believers in this house?
Raise your hand.
Born again believers.
No, you're saved.
Look around you.
Hold your hand.
Look around.
Look, look hard.
Look at him.
Look at the choir.
Look at me.
Look at the platform.
Here's why we're not having revival right here.
Me and you and you and you and
that guy and that guy and that guy
about in the corner is my people.
That's what he said.
My people are why we're not having revival.
Psalm 85, 6, the Bible said, well, thou
shalt not revive us again, that thy people,
us, thy people, is my people.
We're the cause.
We're the cause there's abortion clinics operating because
we have not created a moral climate in
this country to make enough people think it's
wrong.
We're the cause of all the sin in
this country because we have not created a
moral climate in this country to make people
think that it's wrong.
If we preached against some of that stuff
more, we would create a moral climate.
Do you want revival?
It doesn't depend on who's in the White
House or Congress.
It doesn't depend on who's in the state
house.
It doesn't depend on whether or not you
close the abortion clinics or the liquor houses.
It depends on what God's people did.
And God plainly tells us it will do
four things.
Number one, if my people which are called
by my name shall humble, we've got to
get off our house.
I can't preach on humility, but I would
think that humility is the opposite of proud
because the Bible said God resisted the proud,
but give it grace to the humble.
The proud guys, I don't need God.
I can preach without God.
I've been to college.
I've memorized eight sermons.
I've got eight sermons by memory, every word,
and all the jokes.
I don't need God.
I'm happy by myself.
I don't need him.
Humility is, we need you, Jesus.
We can't have a Bible conference without you,
Jesus.
I can't sing without you, Jesus.
I can't play this piano without you, Jesus.
I can't win souls.
Jesus, I need thee every hour.
Oh, I need thee every...
Jesus said without me ye can't do.
Humility is not some kind of a gushy
verbiage that says, well, I'm giving God the
glory and I'm not worthy.
I don't mean that kind of gushy verbiage.
I mean a true heart condition where you
sincerely feel how helpless you are without Jesus
Christ.
We've got too many cocky people.
One preacher graduated from college and was very
proud of himself.
He thought he was a good preacher.
He was invited to preach at a church
and walked up on the platform with his
chest all swelled up, proud.
When he faced the congregation, he forgot everything
he wanted to say.
He stuttered, he stammered.
In a few minutes, he stumbled off the
platform, dejected with his head down.
And a wise old lady said to him,
young man, if you had walked up on
that platform like you walked off that platform,
you could have walked off that platform like
you walked up on that platform.
And we better learn to walk up like
this.
I had an old crippled preacher.
He didn't know much doctrine.
He raised chickens for a living, preached on
the side, drug his old leg before he
got up to preach.
He'd start a song, an amen corner.
We had an amen corner.
He'd start a song, brother, we have met
the worship and the door, our Lord, our
God.
He'd cry, he'd say, son, will you pray
with all your power while we try to
preach his word and everybody's crying before he
got through with it.
He didn't know much, but he was a
high-voltage preacher.
He had some power.
If my people were to call by my
name, show humble, number two, and pray.
Dr. John R.
Rice says all your failures are prayer failures.
You have not because you ask not.
One of your greatest surprises in heaven will
be to discover all the things you could
have had that you never got because you
didn't bother to ask for them.
I wish I could tell you the possibilities
of prayer.
It'll blow your mind.
The possibilities of prayer exceed your ability to
ask.
Ephesians 2.20 says, under him that is
able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all
you ask.
Did you hear that?
That's in the Bible.
It didn't come out of a funny book.
Under him that's able to do exceedingly and
abundantly above all that you ask.
God can do more than you can ask.
But the possibilities of prayer don't exceed your
ability to ask.
They exceed your ability to even think.
Because the same verse says, under him that's
able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all
we ask.
Did that blow your mind?
It's like God says, I can do more
than you can ask me to do.
I can do more than you think I
can do.
And we pray little bitty piddling prayers.
Lord, help us not to lose our congregation
next year.
Give us another dollar and a half in
your offering.
Psalm 81, 10 said, open thy mouth wide
and out of it.
I was in east Kentucky in the mountains
about three Sundays ago.
Preaching in a little church.
The guy said, you can't find it.
I'll come get you.
You never will find it.
It's way out in the country.
And he came and got me and took
me around winding roads and found a little
church way out in the country.
Before he picked me up that morning, I
had the TV on.
I was looking for somebody to be preaching.
And I picked up a black preacher.
Never heard him, never seen him.
And they can preach if they got the
right message.
And the story ain't no good if I
don't kind of tell it the way he
was telling it.
When he told the story, he said he
had a deacon in his church.
He said, me and deacon said, we went
up to the mountains.
The deacon's got a little cabin.
He said for a couple of days rest
and recreation.
Then the deacon got a little girl and
said he's in the mountains.
He wanted to take his little girl something
back.
He said he bought a beautiful little doll.
He said he took the dolly back.
And after a few days, he said the
little girl, he got to playing with the
doll and tore his head off.
Not only tore his head off, but he
said he crumbled his head up so it
couldn't be fixed.
And when a mother saw the doll all
tore up, she said she knew the girl
would be awfully upset, but her surprise, the
little girl wasn't even crying.
And she said, well, honey, you tore your
doll up.
He said, yes, ma'am.
And he said he broke his head all
to pieces.
He said, yes, ma'am.
And you're not even upset about it?
She said, no, daddy can fix it.
Well, she said, honey, daddy can't fix that
doll.
He said, you crumbled his head all to
pieces.
He said, daddy can't fix that doll.
He said, you tore his head up.
She said he'd had a head on it
when daddy brought it to him.
The deacon came home that night and his
wife told him the story.
She said, sister done tore a dolly up.
She said, tore the head off of it.
But she ain't crying.
She ain't upset at all.
She said, daddy can fix it.
She showed it to him.
She said, I told her you couldn't fix
it.
She done messed the head up too bad.
And she said, but mama had a head
on when daddy brought it to me.
And the deacon with a tear in his
eyes called the preacher on the phone and
said, Reverend, what you doing tomorrow?
He said, we got to go back to
the mountains.
Said, I got to get another doll.
My little girl believes in me.
Daddy can fix it.
She wouldn't take no for an answer.
Daddy can fix it.
Here's the deacon drives all the way back
up the mountains, not to spend the two
nights in a cabin, but miles back up
in the woods in the mountains again for
one reason, because the little girl believes it
and has faith in her daddy.
She said, daddy can fix it.
And he brought a brand new doll just
like the other doll.
And daddy fixed it.
Your life messed up?
Daddy can fix it.
Is your marriage tore up?
You say it's been tore up for years.
We tried to get it back together.
We've been to 47 marriage counselors.
Daddy can fix it.
You say my boy's life's messed up and
I've tied everything under here.
Yeah, but daddy can fix it.
F.B. Meyer said he had an old
dog that was set at the table.
And he said, I'd feed it meat from
off the table.
And he said, Mrs. Meyer would say to
me, don't give that dog that good meat.
You eat it and give that dog the
scraps.
And F.B. Meyer said, while I was
sat there trying to eat a steak, said
that dog would lay his head upon my
leg and just rub his head up down
my leg.
Said when Mrs. Meyer wasn't looking, I'd cut
off a big hunk of that steak and
stick it on the table to him.
He said, such faith had to be rewarded.
And I got to finish with it.
I chained on God's big leg and just
rubbed it back and forth and said, Lord,
we want a revival.
Lord, we want a little taste of revival.
Lord, we want something like Billy Sunday had.
Would you give us a little bit of
that in Jacksonville?
I got to feed it and God cut
a big hunk off.
And he'll say to the father, such faith's
got to be rewarded.
They believe daddy can fix it.
The devil said to me, you need not
pray, you're gone.
But daddy can fix it.
Ain't no cure for cancer.
I know, but daddy can fix it.
Yeah, but it's pretty bad.
I know, but daddy can fix it.
You say I'm having a hard time.
Yeah, but daddy can fix it.
If my people would just call by my
name, she'll humble themselves and pray.
When's the last time you had an old
-fashioned session of prayer, calling on heaven until
you got something from heaven?
How many ever prayed for something in this
building?
You prayed for something and you didn't think
it could possibly happen, but it happened anyway.
Raise your hand.
See that?
Look around.
How many got more things you didn't think
would happen, you didn't think would happen?
Raise your hand.
Yeah, because I didn't say if you think
it'll happen, it'll happen.
He said, you ask, you'll receive.
Don't you see that?
Father God.
Dr. Rice said I had tonsillitis years ago.
Said I had a doctor who told me
to go ahead and have them taken out.
He said that morning in my devotions, I
read about a man in the Old Testament
who had a problem with his foot and
he sought for the physicians and not the
Lord and he died.
Dr. Rice said I called the doctor.
I'm canceling that operation.
Said I want to pray about this.
He died nearly 90.
He still had his tonsils in his throat
when he died at 90 something years ago.
He said you're crazy.
I'm crazy.
I was a little bitty boy about this
tall when they took me to Emory Hospital
with my side hurting.
And I must have been awfully pitiful.
They didn't want to take my appendix out.
And when the doctor left the room, I
begged my mother.
I said, mother, I prayed about it.
Mother, I've asked Jesus not to let, not
to let them take it out.
I was just a little boy.
I didn't know no better.
I thought daddy could fix it.
I didn't know daddy couldn't fix it.
Nobody ever told me.
I said, mother, please don't let them do
it.
I said, I'd rather die.
And the doctor came in.
My mother was crying.
She said, we're taking Curtis home.
Well, he said, his appendix will burst and
he'll die.
I'm 58 years old.
They're still in there.
Hadn't busted yet.
I'm busted, but my appendix ain't busted.
Am I against doctors?
No, but I'm saying, daddy can fix it.
My boots are called by my name.
She'll humble themselves and number two, they'll pray.
And the third thing and seek my face.
I don't know what that means, but I
got the cutest little granddaughter.
You wouldn't think I'd say anything else, would
you?
My boy, I thought he'd never get married.
He's about 30 years old when he got
married.
I said, Tony, wait so long to get
married that Medicaid's going to pay for your
honeymoon.
But he finally got married.
Married a cute little black-headed girl.
And they had this pretty little baby with
red hair and brown eyes, smooth audit complexion.
And she called me papa.
I called her this week.
She said, papa.
I said, who do you love?
Papa.
Whose baby are you?
Papa.
Now my boy wants to raise a right.
He's about six foot four.
He's about 290 pounds.
Got arms that look like somebody's legs.
And that little thing's about that high.
They hadn't cut her hair since the day
she was born.
Long, curly red hair.
Not sort of a light strawberry red.
If she does something wrong, then he'll make
her behave.
And her mother and I, his mother and
I don't like it sometimes, you know.
He gets on a cuff.
She'll do something wrong.
He says, Tennille, come here.
Now, look at me.
And she'll come over.
He says, stand right here.
He'll point to a spot.
She gets a foot from it, not there,
here.
Get over here.
Get on the spot.
Stand here, right here.
And I can't help but laugh at her.
She'll stare at him.
He'll say, what was that you just did?
She said, it's a no-no.
You going to do it again?
No, sir.
But she's looking right in his eyes.
You know something?
I never have Tennille do anything wrong when
you look in his eyes.
And when you look in him daddy's face,
you don't do too much wrong.
You seek his face early in the morning
and noon and night.
You look in his face all day long.
You won't be cussing and lying, getting drunk
on liquor when you look in daddy's face.
You won't be coming in there more right.
You look in daddy's face.
My dad used to look at me.
I knew what that meant.
Seek my face means spend some time alone
with God.
We're too busy.
We don't have time for our quiet times.
If my people would just call by my
name and show humble themselves and pray and
seek my face.
And one more thing he said, I want
you to do and turn from your wicked
ways.
Isn't that easy stuff?
If I've been cussing, I quit cussing.
If I've been getting drunk, I quit getting
drunk.
I've been beating, well I started beating my
wife, but she's been beating me.
She needs to get right about that.
The last time we had a fight, I
didn't see her for three weeks.
Then my left eye began to open up
just a little bit.
But the last time I got her, she
came calling to me on her hands and
knees.
Come out of that bed, you little rascal,
you.
And turn from their wicked ways.
It wouldn't be too hard to do that.
D.L. Moody was trying to have revival.
He said, you want to have revival?
I'll show you how.
He said, every Christian here, come forward and
kneel on your knees and confess your sins
to Christ and get them forgiven and tend
to get right with God.
And one man said, Mr. Moody, I can't
remember my sins.
And Moody said, well just kneel and guess
at them.
And Moody said he guessed them the very
first time.
And I got it out of him.
If we didn't want revival, we could guess
them the very first time.
We know what they are.
We know those little secret hidden sins of
the heart.
We know what they are.
There are two backsliders in Luke 15.
Both boys are backslidden.
The prodigal son is backslidden because of the
outward, obvious sins of the life.
But the older brother at home is just
as backslidden.
But here's the inward, secret sins of the
heart.
You see, the boy at home was the
baddest younger brother that left.
He had no burden for his return.
You'd never find him one time saying to
Daddy, let's pray that my brother will come
home.
He was gone.
You watch the guy that's bad when the
other guy falls.
And he's about as bad as the guy
that fell.
The guy that never prays for the prodigal
to come home is not as bad as
the prodigal himself.
His is just the inward, secret sins of
the heart.
You can't see them.
He was selfish.
They was bread enough to spare in the
house.
But you never hear this old boy saying
to Daddy, we got more bread than we
can eat.
Why don't we share this with somebody?
No, his philosophy was, make all you can.
Can't all you make sit on the can
and pause and rest.
I can't eat it all, but we don't
give anybody else any of it.
You ever read the Bible?
That's in Luke 15, by the way.
That's in the New Testament.
Tell you something else, even when his brother
got right with God, he didn't rejoice.
He stayed outside and pouted.
His problem was he tried to be right
with the father and wrong with the brother
who got right with the father.
And let me shock you and tell you,
you can't be right with the father and
wrong with the brother who's right with the
father.
When a man comes to tune these pianos,
he'll use a tuning fork.
Looks like a pulley born out of a
bionic chicken.
He'll hit that fork and it'll hum a
little note.
He'll tune his piano to that tuning fork.
He can go over this campus and tune
every piano on this campus to that same
tuning fork, put them in one room.
They'll all be in complete harmony with each
other because they're all in tune with the
fork.
But if he tunes this one and tries
to tune another one with this one and
another one with that one, after about three
pianos, it'll be out of tune with this
one.
And when we get right with God and
you get right with God, we have to
be right with each other because we're tuned
up to the same point.
We can't be out of tune.
We can't be out of harmony on the
day of Pentecost.
We're all in one accord.
They wasn't riding in a Honda automobile.
They'd all got tuned up with a tuning
fork.
They was all in tune with each other.
You don't get right with each other by
trying to get right with each other.
You get right with the other by only
getting right with God.
Don't you see that?
And turn from their wicked ways.
Now watch it.
If my people which are called by my
name shall humble themselves and pray and seek
my faith and turn from their wicked ways.
What's the next word?
Then.
Say it loud.
Then.
You know what then means?
You know what it means?
It means at that point in time.
Immediately following.
Not 40 years later.
It didn't say then sometime thereafter.
It didn't say that, does it?
Then.
When?
When my people humble themselves and pray and
seek my faith and turn from their wicked
ways.
Then at that moment, at that point in
time.
Ah.
Uh-oh.
We're getting God in there, man.
What'd you do?
Then I'll hear from heaven.
Forgive their sin.
Heal their land.
You say, doesn't God hear all the time
anyway?
Yeah, but this word here means to hear
with the intention of doing something.
You ever say to your kid, take the
garbage out and 10 minutes later you're still
sitting there watching TV?
And you go to, you say, Tony, didn't
you hear me?
Well, you knew he heard you.
What you're saying is don't you intend to
do something about it?
Because when you do those four things, I'll
hear you with the attitude of the idea
of doing something about what you're talking about
now when you pray.
I'll hear from heaven.
What else would you do?
I'll forgive your sins.
But then I'll heal your land.
Our land?
Our land's America.
Isn't it sad we're spending millions and millions
and millions and millions of dollars trying to
bring America together?
20 million to be spent on the inauguration
of Bill Clinton.
National news media's going to cut it seven
days, seven days, like a crown of thorns.
He wanted to pull America together.
You don't tune them up with each other.
You get them all right with a tuning
fork.
You've never seen such unity in your life
as there was among people when they had
revivals in places.
God's not dead.
He's not even sick.
He don't have a bad cholera headache.
He's still able to do the day while
he's ever done.
Spend any time in his existence.
You want revival?
It's up to you.
Give me five people.
Give me three people.
Give me one person.
And if I'll do what the Bible says,
and he'll do what the Bible says, we
can have revival.
And it'll spread.
You can start a vow to turn your
back on the church.
I'm talking about show no self now.
You knew it?
Don't wait for an explosion now.
Wait for the combustion.
And the first thing you knew, others will
be meeting with you for prayer over here.
Let four or five preacher boys just sneak
in here in the middle of the night
and say, we're going to meet the conditions.
We've got two or three more years at
Trinity.
If it takes two or three years, we're
going to meet the conditions.
We're going to start the little fire in
our hearts before you know it, others will
be joining.
And churchmen will be joining before you knew
it.
Revival will be on.
And you don't know what's about to happen
here.
Rod Bell wrote me a letter and told
me what's going to happen in his church.
I can't describe it to you, but it
started off awful slow.
He says, now people are going in souls
and bringing them in and the church is
going by leaps and bounds, but they got
burdened for revival, got to pray and seeking
God.
Revival broke out.
The sad thing is, I read about revival,
but never been in one in a real
sense of the word.
But I think I've been in more revival
than some of you have been in.
And the sad thing is a lot of
you young preachers, I'm afraid may live and
die and laugh at revivals and laugh at
people like Billy Sundin, Mordecai Hammond, those guys
who had revivals and never have one yourself.
May God in heaven get ahold of us
and shake us to our very core so
we can sing.
Revive us again.
May each heart with our love.
May each soul be rekindled with fire.
Hallelujah, thine the glory.
Hallelujah.
Amen.
Hallelujah, thine the glory.
Revive us again.