Well, we're going to go ahead and get
started.
Happy is the preacher that gets to follow
Stephen Olford.
Because not only will Stephen Olford warm you
up, he'll fire you up.
So are you fired up tonight?
Well, you know, it's cold outside, but we
have to be careful to maintain those embers
on the altars of our heart.
Make sure that they burn.
Keep those burning.
And this whole issue of revival, this whole
business of revival, is a passion with me.
I've been studying it for several decades.
I have gone into deep, deep study on
it.
I've had the privilege of talking with great
men of revival like Dr. Ted Randall.
Men like that.
And I'll tell you, when I think of
revival, I think that it all comes down
to this.
It comes down to prayer.
All revival is birthed in prayer.
It's not only birthed in prayer, it's bathed
in prayer.
You don't have to be somebody famous.
In fact, in history, it's usually the nobodies
that walk with God.
The nobodies that walk with him.
It benefits, and it's easy.
Another benefit of walking with God, it's enjoyable.
It's enjoyable.
It's a supreme joy to walk with the
creator of the universe.
Sidlo Baxter used to say to his friend
H.D. McCarty in Arkansas, he said, Harvey,
imagine every morning that the creator of the
universe deigns to meet with little old Sidlo
Baxter as I pray.
Walking with God is enjoyable.
It's one of the most joyous things in
our lives.
And if you're like me, those walks with
God can be some of the most joyful
times of our lives.
It reminds me of that hymn, In the
Garden.
You know the one I'm referring to?
And he walks with me, and he talks
with me, and he tells me I am
his own, and what's...
We share as we tarry there, none other
I've ever known.
It's enjoyable.
There's no other joy like that.
Another benefit to walking with God, it's exciting.
When you leave the natural and the ordinary,
and you start walking in the supernatural and
the extraordinary, there's nothing like it.
There's nothing like it.
It's exciting.
The Christian life is an adventure.
Isn't that right?
There are few things more exciting on this
earth than those mountaintop experiences that we have
with him.
Nobody can take that from us.
The devil can't take it from us.
When we're on that mountaintop, along with the
Lord, there is nothing like it.
It's exciting.
It's a thrill.
It's a gripping.
Well, I've mentioned briefly to walking with God.
But I would be remiss if I failed
to mention some conditions for walking with God.
There are some conditions to walking with God.
I'm assuming you already realize that you must
be born again, right?
Oh, he won't walk with an unbeliever.
You must be born again.
The next condition to walking with God is
this.
To walk with God, you have to follow.
Now, that's important.
You can't lead the way and expect him
to follow you.
You can't move this way in your ministry
without praying for us and expect God to
come alongside you and bless it.
How many times have I moved in my
life?
I said, okay, God, I'm going in this
direction.
I want you to come alongside of me.
It was a disaster.
I know that's never happened to any of
you.
So, to walk with God, we have to
learn how to follow.
And I say the word learn, right?
As disciples, we're learners.
We have to learn how to follow.
Jesus, in his earthly ministry, said to his
disciples, he said, follow me and I will
make you fishers of what?
Of men.
He didn't say, I'll follow you.
He said, follow me.
The next condition to walking with God is
to listen.
We have to be listeners when we walk
with God.
Have you ever had a friend that when
you get together with talking and the subject
they love to talk about more than anything
else is themselves?
You ever have a friend like that?
I had lunch with a friend not too
long ago and for the whole hour, he
talked about himself.
He talked about himself, talked about his ministry.
That's all he wanted to talk about.
That's kind of a one-sided friendship, isn't
it?
My wife has a friend who will say
to her, how are you?
And when she says, fine, the girl will
say, well, enough talk about you.
Let's talk about me.
A lot of people like that.
It's one-sided.
Well, I thought about this and I had
to apply this to my quiet time.
And I had asked myself, is that a
one-sided relationship where I'm doing all the
talking?
Or do I get in there and do
I listen?
What's my quiet time all about?
Am I going in there with my list
of prayer requests?
It's good to have a list, but is
that all my quiet time is where I'm
doing all the talking?
I'm complaining about this and I'm griping about
that and I'm asking Him to bless me
on this or am I listening?
Be still and know that I am God.
If you want to walk with the creator
of the universe, you not only have to
follow, you have to listen.
Jesus said over and over again, He said,
He who has ears to hear, let them
what?
Let them hear.
He didn't say those that have mouths to
talk, let them talk.
He knew we're going to do that, right?
We don't have any trouble talking, do we?
But we do have trouble listening.
In fact, my wife tells me I'm a
very poor listener and I believe her.
We have to work at being listeners.
We have to work at listening to God,
speak to us.
The next part is we have to obey,
obedience.
After we follow Him, after we listen to
Him, we must obey what He tells us.
What good is the servant in the parable
who buried his talent in the ground?
He didn't obey his master.
My Bible tells me that to obey is
better than what?
Sacrifice, obedience.
In the last letter that Evan Roberts wrote
to a friend, Evan Roberts of the Wales
Revival of 1904, the last letter he wrote
at the end of his life, he put
three words at the bottom of the page
and it was obedience, obedience, obedience.
That is what he learned.
With his walk with God, if God reveals
to us and we fail to obey, it's
sin.
We've missed the mark.
So we have to hear what He says.
There's another condition to walking with God and
if we fail here, we fail everywhere.
Stephen Olford to me typified this.
That's the banner on the wall there in
the middle, be ye holy.
If we're going to walk with God, we
must be holy.
My Bible tells me that unless two are
agreed, they cannot walk together.
Is that not right?
So if we want to walk with God
and God is holy, we have to pursue
a life of holiness, Ephesians 1.4 commands
us to be holy and without blame before
Him in love.
Holy is the inward man or inward standing.
The outward man, how we look before man
and God were to be holy and blameless
before Him.
Because we love Him.
Because of what He did for us to
save a wretch like me.
What little can I do then to pursue
a life of holiness, to pay Him back.
Holiness, if you want to walk with the
creator of the universe, be holy.
I've seen many a man, ministry, fall and
crumble because he was morally was impure.
I've seen men in the city fall because
of that.
I've seen men personally that I've known as
friends that I consider very strong Christians at
one point, but they didn't pursue holiness and
they fell and Satan got a hold of
them and it ruined their reputation and they're
worthless for God.
Holiness is a command.
We must be obedient.
So we must learn to follow God.
We must learn to listen to God.
We must learn to obey God when He
speaks to us.
Well, there's an additional benefit which He promises
to all believers as we walk with Him.
And that's our sanctification process.
You know, it's kind of neat.
The more we walk with Him, the more
we become like Him.
The more we walk with Him, the more
we become like Him.
That's that sanctification process.
Well, that's the end of my little introduction
on our lecture on revival tonight.
We're going to spend a great deal of
time on studying history, revival history, different aspects
of revival.
I believe that in America today, it's very
similar to the times in the 18th century
prior to the ministry of John Wesley and
George Whitefield.
Spirituality is at a low ebb.
There's a moral downgrade in our society.
There's conflicts in the pulpits.
There's dead orthodoxy.
And we need a great movement of the
Spirit of God, not only on us personally,
but corporately and nationally.
We're going to talk about that tonight.
Revival.
Revival is a passion with me.
And revival can be a passion with you.
It really is a passion.
When God gets ahold of you in revival,
it turns your life upside down.
Before I came to Stephen Offred, I was
a back row bum as a Christian.
I was useless from what I know now.
My Christian walk as a Christian.
And under his preaching, God got ahold of
me and I went into personal revival.
Personal revival.
And my life hasn't been the same since.
He turned me upside down.
I mean, God got ahold of me.
It was painful.
He flipped me upside down and I went
into personal revival.
And I've been pursuing him ever since.
I pursue him more and more every day.
He's more lovely to me every day.
Every day, he's more lovely.
That walk with God.
You know what I'm talking about.
Revival.
Maybe there's someone here tonight that needs a
personal revival.
Well, how do you know?
Do you have dry eyes when you pray?
Do you become kind of a job?
Is the passion gone?
Have you left your first love?
What's your courtship like with Jesus lately?
Revival.
We all need revival.
I need revival all the time.
You want to stay in that white hot
oven with God.
That white hot oven.
That walk with God of revival.
And that's something you have to pursue.
He's on the narrow road.
When Jesus goes, he goes on the narrow
way.
The wide way is the broad way.
That's New York City where all those godless
plays are.
It's called Broadway, right?
The narrow way is His way.
It's a pursuit.
A pursuit of Him.
I'm going to read you some quotes of
men of revival.
Vance Havner.
Vance Havner used to say, you know, I
can't mimic his voice, but he'd say, you
know, everybody's holding revival.
It's about time somebody let loose the one.
Vance Havner had a way of really, you
know, getting in there.
Vance Havner used to preach with Stephen Offord
on the same platform.
I have a tape at my house where
Vance Havner says, I do believe that God's
going to use Stephen Offord in a mighty
sweeping revival.
He's a man of revival.
And Stephen Offord was a man of revival.
In fact, I read the biography of Vance
Havner.
And in that biography in North Carolina, when
he and Stephen Offord were preaching for a
week at a pastor's conference, God broke out
in revival.
I asked Mrs. Offord about it.
She said, oh, yes, I was there.
She said, I was with him.
I remember it well.
Revival broke up.
Preaching on revival one night.
And this pastor went up to him after
the message.
And he said, Brother Havner, he said, you
know what?
He said, that message you just preached, that
really tore me up.
He said, that really tore me up.
And Vance Havner said, well, Brother, what do
you think it did to me?
You know, revival kind of gets a hold
of you and it turns you upside down.
You know, if it's hard on you, how
do you think I feel?