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  REVIVAL IN THE LAND
  by Al Whittinghill
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Duration: 1:16:01

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CONTENT
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Well, it's been a great pleasure for me to be here for several days and
get to know many of you. I always want to do that at a conference, come
in and listen to my brethren because I think the Lord has a lot to say
to my needy heart. And it's been a great joy to meet so many of you.

In a moment, we're going to turn to the book that Jesus most quoted
from. I'll let you wonder what that is, I'm sure many of you know, but
we're going to look in that book. But first, I just want to say I've
been thinking about the order of our conference.

You know, we started off and Brother Trevor talked about everything
being in Christ, it's all in Him. Have you learned that yet? Have I
learned that yet? And then the precious blood, the way that we come to
the Lord and live in His presence. Then Brother KP, that was Brother
Randy, and then KP spoke about the simplicity that is in Christ and the
need for radical obedience and the everyday things and to get a heavenly
perspective on that.

Then along came Kevin and he talked about sacrificial and the
willingness even to be martyred because of the great things he's done.
And then Jose shared about the Word of God. Jesus prayed, sanctify them
through thy truth, thy Word is the truth.

This is His great way to make our lives into what He wants. And then
last night, that stirring word, that exhortation about the poverty of
spirit without which we're going to face brass heavens. Well, it's a
blessing.

I wonder if you've discerned what the Lord is saying to you at this
conference. We come to a lot of conferences, but how are you going to go
home? What's it going to do? What difference is it going to make in your
heart and life? I go to a lot of revival conferences, and I believe the
only hope is heaven sent revival. We've misused that word so much that a
lot of people say they don't like it anymore.

And the devil's tried to empty it out, but it's still our great need for
the church of the Lord Jesus. Revival will never come if we can succeed
in pointing out all the evils of the church. That won't bring revival.

And even if we really, really want it and even stir ourselves up to try
to work our way into a froth, to move toward a praise that we call
revival, it'll never come that way either. And it'll never come if we
just spend a lot of time just praying, send revival. But here's how it
will come.

It's when the church of the Lord Jesus Christ receives, through the
revelation of the Word of God, a new and a right revelation of the risen
King, the Lord Jesus. And then as we see that, even that, as wonderful
as it is, there must be a response to what God shows us with a true
heart, with a full heart of obedience to what He says, not trying to
trick God or reason with Him. We've got to respond to Him in such a way.

I believe we live in a day when every listening heart that really knows
the Lord, every person that really is His, has a sense of danger.
There's a lot going on all around the globe, and we can sense that
something is wrong, it's out of step. And we may try to distract
ourselves, even in the church, with a lot of things.

We entertain ourselves to death, we have playthings of dust, we build
buildings, we do everything in the world to convince ourself that
progress is coming, except for perhaps come the right way and really
say, Lord, speak to us. You see, but the thing that we can't ignore is
that the marks of divine displeasure fill the land and fill most lands
today that are ominous to show that our Heavenly Father is speaking not
just to Israel, but to the nations of the earth. He is speaking, and He
wants those who know Him, He says way back at the beginning, let them
prepare for me a sanctuary, a holy place, that I may live among them.

This is His desire, to dwell in the midst of His churches, to love His
people, and to express His DNA, divine nature from above, through His
people every day, all the time. Not just going out sharing one night a
week, not just coming to prayer meeting, but abiding in Him, not trying
to get closer to a far off God, but realizing that He who's joined
Himself to the Lord is one spirit, and we are one with Him. And so it's
time, you see, for the church to live in that dimension.

There's a rumor from the Lord in the land, have you heard it? Like it
was in Jeremiah's day. I mean, things are not getting better. Things
will never get better if we don't deal with the point of His dealing.

And He is saying things. It's not just lost people in our country that
are the reason for the judgment and the displeasure that we're sensing.
It is a church that's taken lightly, all that He is and all He wants us
to be.

See, by faith, God warned Noah. We were talking about that during the
break. I wonder how He warned him, you ever thought about that? I wonder
how Noah got a word from God, but I don't know how, doesn't say.

By faith it happened. He didn't see it, he heard something, and Noah
moved, he responded with fear, godly fear, and it resulted in the
salvation of his whole home. And it's time for us to listen to the rumor
from the Lord and let it birth in us an urgency and let it bring to us
the right appropriate attitude of heart, you see.

There's a sovereign shaking going on, and the people of God can know it,
and it's time for us to face the fact that you specifically and I were
birthed in this age for this hour. And God has a purpose that's glorious
for you. And a pastor said to me the other day, I just don't know what
the future holds.

And I said, well, it's going to be hard because we've never seen a
future like the one that's just getting fixing to come. I believe
America is fixing to meet a side of God they've never learned yet. The
holy side, the right side, you see, why has God left you here for such a
time as this? Am I willing to move and respond to what he said to me in
the secret place and under the preaching and as I look at society, what
the spirit of God says to me, am I willing like the scriptures say, thy
people shall be willing in the day of thy power.

My friend in Sudan says, thy people shall be willing. I love that. And I
just, it's this deep, thy people shall be willing in the beauty of
holiness in the dawn of the morning, in resurrection power, that life
that comes.

That's how we're to be willing. You see, we can't accept the blessing of
revival. We'll never see it until we're willing to carry the burden for
revival.

And we've got to be willing for that. We who know the Lord must realize
that the lack of revival today in our churches, in our nation among the
churches is not because of a reluctance on God's part. We can blame his
sovereignty all we want, but who can imagine Jesus who died for a
glorious church and lives to ensure that she'll be what the father
wants.

Can you imagine a time that he wouldn't want a holy bride, a cleansed
bride, a radiant church? Can you imagine a time that he wouldn't? You
see, we can't, I believe as Christians, we are more to be blamed for not
living in continuous revival than a lost man is to be blamed for still
being lost. We've got the whole scriptures. We've got everything God has
said.

We've got the Holy Spirit nudging, calling, gripping us. I wonder if the
reality of this has ever gripped you. You are living in a nation that is
under the obvious judgment of God.

Like the days of Jeremiah, we are living in a time when the church must
let her mind be shaped, her heart be moved into the place the Lord has.
I wonder if tomorrow, if everything that you hold dear and unshakable
disappeared or was taken away, do I have enough intimacy with the Lord
Jesus Christ to say it's enough and to walk with him? Could I flourish
in his purposes in a totally new situation? Have we learned that he is
our life and that we can trust him, you see? That's what he wants us to
understand. All the conferences on revival and revival itself is just a
religious buzzword if we're not willing to face the implications of what
God's Spirit is saying specifically right now.

If there's no revival, you can be sure of this. The lack is on the part
of the people of God and not our wonderful Lord Jesus who longs to see
his church rise up and worship him. Do I want this or am I just wanting
a parcel of blessing? Do I want to tip God with part of my life and tip
him again? He's not looking for just portions.

He wants the whole package all at once. So he's waiting for the church
of our day to come to him his way because we are plugged in to what he
wants. Now before I go to the text in Deuteronomy that I want to
springboard from this morning, I would like to take a liberty or two
just to say a few things to communicate the urgency of the hour.

You know, just like the church in the Canaan, the people of God of that
day were surrounded with all the Habbites, Hittites, Gergesites,
Jebusites, and all the Ites, and they dwelt comfortably with them even
though the Lord had said utterly cast them out. Oh, what they left
plagued them even to this day. I wonder if you've considered the isms,
all the isms and the Ites that surround us, all the cults and all the
wrong thinking.

You see, God is going to deal with all that and he wants the church to
face it and deal with it. Some people are surprised by the headlines
they read as if what's going on. There was a man in Britain, Sir
Clifford Cripp, that said, he said, listen, he said, people are
wondering, do you think that God has forsaken the world? He answered and
said, no, I'm very sure he's not, but the world has forsaken God.

The world has turned its back. The church has turned its back and God is
seeking to get the attention of the church by a thousand ways. He's
seeking to shake the church to her knees.

The alarms are sounding. It's like a hotel being on fire and the
philosophers and others are jumping out of the windows because they
don't have anywhere to go. We have all the answers in the word of God
and we're not really willing to give it, you see.

We say, pray for us that we'll have the freedom to preach the gospel.
What that means is there won't be any consequence. We do have the
freedom to preach the gospel.

Oh, yeah, we do. I was thinking yesterday when Jose was speaking,
Alexander Scorby recorded the Bible out loud seven times all the way
through. You can read it in 190 hours, the Bible.

That's about 16 weeks at two hours a day. You can read it through at a
slower pace than he dictated it. But it's not Bible reading that will
save you, it's Bible meditation and receiving that will save you.

Can you imagine being Alexander Scorby and standing before God and
saying, I didn't know after recording the word of God seven times? It's
like a Baptist or Presbyterian sitting in church for 20 years, hearing
preaching and trying to play dumb. How we play dumb. Even at conferences
like this.

We treat it like a buffet and say, I want this, I want that, I don't
want this, I want the other. Listen, this century has seen the death of
many nations. There have been nations that were greater.

I mean, we see nations that you thought would never disappear. The Roman
Empire lasted 1,200 years. The average empire lasts about 200.

It's almost as if when that judgment of the nations, God will say, I've
given these nations their turn at the helm of the world, whether it's
Spain or France or England or whoever it is, the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, all of them, you see, they've had their turn. And Russia
collapsed, the Japanese collapsed, Rome and Greece and Constantinople,
even Egypt. They all collapsed.

They weren't even godly. But God, you see, he wrote things in the
scriptures for our warning. He said the things that were written before
time were written for our learning, examples to us that we might through
the scriptures have wisdom and we might be warned, those who upon the
end of the age have come.

You see, we can look at the Word of God and see principles of judgment
in God's people and we say it clearly. But what about the other nations?
God has principles that you see in Jeremiah and Amos and Nahum and all
the nations that didn't even know God. He says you've had your turn at
the helm of the world.

I like Arnold Toynbee's book where he talks about the, and with several
others, they studied and they brought together the common symptoms of
nations that are being dissolved and fixing to go off the stage of
history. Twenty-one of the last great nations, the great ones, like the
ones I've just mentioned, history is replete with the ruins of days gone
by. But you see, we don't learn.

These are the common symptoms, I'm just going to list them for you, of
nations that were in charge of the world, really, and no one thought
they'd ever disappear. But here's what happened to them. Symptoms of
God's judgment, the social symptoms, listen to these, common in every
one of them, an increase in lawlessness and the promotion of wrong
people.

I mean, Edward Gibbon's book, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
has these same things. Toynbee's book, Johnson's book on world history,
but people don't want to study history. God says, look at these nations
and see why did they fall? Learn from this.

We've got to learn for ourselves. Social symptoms, increase in
lawlessness, a loss of economic discipline and self-restraint, a rising
bureaucracy, government regulation and big taxes, this is nothing new,
and a decline in the relevance and the quality of education. All that's
just practical stuff.

But what about the cultural factors? Things like the weakening of the
foundation principles that even made that nation great. It was always
based upon something that was solid, but it weakened, you see, a
relativism, or it dissipated, a loss of respect for their established
religion. It wasn't even Christianity or godliness.

It was maybe something else, but they lost it and they fragmented, and
that's what happened to them. And a loss of, an increase in materialism
and in luxury and selfishness, a loss of moral fiber and willingness to
sacrifice for what their nation stood for. Now lest you get me confused,
I'm not equating patriotism with godliness, but I am equating the fact
that God is no respecter of persons or nations.

The nations, the nation, the nations that forget God will be turned
toward a path of destruction, toward hell, he says. And listen to the
spiritual indicators that have been common for the last great nations.
Arise in immorality, because immorality is really a spiritual thing at
its core, you know, at the very core of it.

Arise in immorality and sensuality. Number two, a lure of alien gods,
other things, strange things, and an exalting of man instead of God. A
decline in the value of human life, whether young or old.

He called it the blood of innocence in the skirts of his people in
Jerusalem. They were killing babies. And divorce and the sanctity of the
home breaks down and gender is confused.

All of these were blind alleyways that great empires were taken to
oblivion by and they are in spades in our own nation. It's like the
headline this morning. It's happening in South Africa, it's happening in
all the nations almost of the earth.

Now I want to take you to the book of Deuteronomy because that's where
we're diving into the word this morning. Because you see, the setting is
this, the children of Israel are about to enter the promised land. He
had told them, I brought you out of Canaan, I brought you out of Egypt,
the land of bondage, with something in mind, so that I might bring you
into the land of Canaan.

You see, God doesn't just save somebody to deliver them from trouble or
a bad past or all the difficulties they've had to make their life
wonderful and easy. He brought you out that He might bring you in, into
all that Jesus stands for and all that He is, so that you can love the
Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul and strength, says the
Lord Jesus, and to just be constantly abiding in His glorious presence
in a 24-hour worship service, walking around. That's what He wants.

But you see, we have, just like Israel, we've gone in circles looking
back to Canaan, looking back to Egypt, longing for the leeks and the
onions and the barley cakes and all those other things, and wondering,
why has He brought us out into this new way of walking? I don't know
about walking by faith, and so God gives us handfuls of mercy. He pours
out manna, daily bread, and it's just such a picture for us. And so,
there's a whole generation that God let perish in the wilderness.

You know why, because of unbelief. Unbelief was the great, it's at the
head of the list. The fearful and the unbelieving comes before the
abominable of those who won't be in the kingdom and in heaven in
Revelation.

The fearful and the unbelieving. And so, you see, after 40 years,
another generation rises up, and God has a new beginning for them.
There's major change coming, and they're so aware that God has been with
them and that He's blessed them.

They had a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, and they had a
worship service continually right in the midst of the camp, the
tabernacle. If you've never studied it, you need to. Now, just read
about it.

Study it. Oh, let God lead you into His courts there with that. Well,
before God takes them into Canaan, He reminds them of the necessity of a
continuing heart abandonment to Him.

He says, listen, I'm about to bring you in. And look at Deuteronomy 6,
and you see in verse 4 that great word called the Shema. It says, Hear,
O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your might. And these words which I command you this
day will be in your notebook. They will be in your heart.

And you shall teach these words diligently, just kind of, you know,
casually, no, diligently to your children. And you shall talk about them
when you're sitting in your house, and when you're walking by the way,
and when you're lying down, and when you're rising up. That's an
attention on the words of the heart of our Father coming to us.

And you shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they'll be like
frontlets, those little leather packets they put between their eyes to
show a constant attention for when what God is saying. And write them on
the doorposts of your house, this is what you stand for, on your gates,
this is what God wants. And look what he says, And it shall be that when
the Lord your God has brought you into the land which he swore to your
fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them great and goodly cities
which you did not have to build.

See, it's blessings that you did not earn. It's a life that you were not
responsible for. It's given to you.

And you have houses that are full of good things which you did not fill,
and wells that are dug which you did not dig, and vineyards and olive
trees which you did not plant. Then you have, when you've eaten, and you
are full, then beware. Oh, I think it's awesome how it says, take heed.

Beware, consider in your heart to the people of God. He says, listen, he
says, Beware lest you forget the Lord who brought you forth out of the
land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. You shall fear the Lord.

You shall hold him in astonishment. You shall have that appropriate
attitude of God is God, and I'm just so needy that fear and
astonishment. Fear the Lord your God and serve him and swear by his
name.

Do not go after the other gods, the gods of the people that are around
you, the material gods, the entertainment gods, the sports gods, and all
the other gods that just change form in different nations over the
years. For the Lord your God is a jealous God in your midst, and if you
do, the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you, and he
will destroy you from off the face of the earth. Don't test the Lord
your God.

Look at verse 23. He brought us up out from Egypt that he might bring us
in to what he had in mind, his full promise. He has something in mind
for us, for you in these days, specifically that's glorious and that is
beautiful.

Then you'll see over in chapter 5, verse 29, God is lamenting and
calling out and recording it. Oh, that there were such a heart in them
that they would fear me and keep my commandments always that it might be
well with them and with their children. Chapter 8, look at verse,
chapter 8, turn there, and he says in verse 5, consider this in your
heart, like a man chastens his son, the Lord your God is chastening you.

Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and this
is, listen, this is not legalism. This is love in action. You shall keep
the commandment of the Lord your God to walk in his ways.

You can't command ways. Ways are learned by character and perception of
who God is, and fear him, and the Lord your God is bringing you into a
good land, brooks, water, fountains, depths that spring out of valleys
and hills, a land of wheat and barley and vines, fig trees, pomegranate,
oil and olive and honey. In our days it's mink and money, not milk and
honey.

A land which you shall eat bread without any scarcity. You won't lack
anything in it. You shall dig out of the iron, out of the hills and
brass, and when you've eaten, oh you shall bless the Lord your God for
the good land that he has given to you.

Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God in not being submissive
to him. Obey his commandments, it's saying, and his judgments and his
statutes, the ones that I'm letting you know about this day. I'm
commanding you.

Lest when you have eaten and you've become full, see, you build goodly
houses and you dwell in them and your herds and your flocks multiply,
your silver and your gold multiplies. You hear that word again, and all
you have multiplies. You think you're growing, you think you're getting
blessed, then your heart is lifted up and you forget the Lord your God
who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Verse 18, you shall remember the Lord your God, it is he that's giving
you the power to be blessed, that he might establish his covenant, not
just to bless you, but to further the word of God, which he swore to
your fathers. And it shall be that if you do at all forget the Lord your
God and walk after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify
against you this day, his people he's speaking to, that you shall
utterly perish. Chapter 10, verse 12, and now Israel, what does the Lord
require of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, to
love him, to serve the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all
of your soul and to keep the commandments, why? Because it's for your
good I've given them to you.

This is the way, walk ye in it, he is saying to them. So what's he
saying? He's saying listen, you're going into a wonderful land, I love
you, I want to bless you, I'm the Lord that brought you out of bondage,
I bought you with the blood of the Passover lamb, I am with you for 40
years, I've nurtured you and cared for you on every level of your
practical life and you're in covenant with me and now before you go into
this place of blessing I want to tell you in advance the dangers of
prosperity. In Jeremiah it's called the curse of prosperity because it
can take your heart away.

I want to warn you of the necessity of staying intimate with me, you
must love me, you must walk in my ways, you must love the Lord with all
your heart, it's a great danger you're coming into. Chapter 11, here's
our text, chapter 11, he says in verse 7, your eyes have seen all the
great acts of the Lord which he did, therefore you keep the commands
which I command you this day that you might continue in strength and go
and possess the land, I have a purpose for you, he's saying, so that you
can prolong your days in that place that I've brought you into, that's
what he's saying. Now he gives them a contrast, you've come out of Egypt
and you're going into Canaan, look at this, verse 10, for the land in
which you're going to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which
you came out, where you sowed your seed and you watered it with your
foot as a garden of herbs.

Now when I was in Egypt I saw this and I'm sure when Kevin was there he
saw this, you go down by the Nile and you see there's no rainfall in the
Mideast, everything in the Mideast depends on rain, water, it's a
picture of the necessity of all that God is but it's a visual reminder
in visual form that everything needs water to live and if you don't have
water you'll quickly perish and so there's a river in Egypt called the
Nile that is their only source, they have almost no rainfall at all, so
that's why they worship the Nile and how when they plant their seed do
they get what's needed to make it grow, to make life work? Well it says
here you get it by the working of the foot, the watering of the foot.
Now if you go down to the Nile you'll see there a little machine that
looks like a bicycle with a long chain, there's all kinds of ways they
do this but it would be the equivalent of if you made a bicycle seat up
top above the river bank and there's this long chain with milk cartons
that are cut open, strapped on it and a man sits up there on that little
bicycle and he just goes his feet like this, he's just pumping all day,
he's just pumping and as he pumps that chain goes around and those
little milk cartons go down underneath the water level and lift that
water up and it goes ploosh, ploosh, ploosh and it spills it up there on
that plateau that he's on and it gradually fills the ruts that he's dug
and the water goes out and then there's another level where someone else
is up there, they might have an ox with a big long stick tied to his
neck and he's walking in a big circle like this, drawing up by the same
way the water from the Nile but you see what it depended on was a clever
system that was engineered by man, a man-made system to get water from
where it was to where it needed to be. You following me so far? Y'all
are getting sleepy, I can see it in your eyes.

Because I'm going like da-da-da-da-da-da, it's like ah, his voice of
God, don't do it, don't do it. If you see somebody beside you nodding
off say, hey he called on you to pray. We did that to a guy in church
one time, he was nodding off and he called on you to pray and this guy
said, let us pray, right in the middle of his message.

I'll promise you this, he never did that again. He was like this, he
would never go to sleep. I'm just trying to wake you up here because you
see, a water supply depending upon man.

You know, earthly resource and it's pumped up from the Nile by man's
energy, it's ingenuity in action, it's through manipulation and
invention and man-made ditches, it's a water supply that depends upon
the strength of the flesh to keep going and it's fleshly maintenance and
you see, this is a picture of the world, the way they bless things and
the way they bless the end of the church when she does not depend upon
the Lord himself but depends on the inventions that we have come up
with. You see, it's a picture of that, a supply originating on earth and
it flatters us, aren't they ingenious, aren't they energetic, aren't
they organized, isn't that clever, isn't it wonderful. You see, natural
resources plus human ingenuity equals a natural result.

That's what we see in Egypt. But what a contrast with Canaan. Look what
the Lord says, he says listen, but the land, verse 11, where you're
going to possess is a land of hills and of valleys and it drinks the
water from the rain of heaven.

You're going to have a different source, it's not on earth, it's
heavenly and I'm going to pour out, he says, on you. It's a land that
the Lord your God cares for. You're going to a place that I want you to
be and the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon this from the
beginning of the year to the end.

And look at this, it shall come to pass if you maintain that
relationship with me, keep my commandments to love the Lord, to serve
him with all of your heart and with all of your soul that you can count
on me. I will give to you the rain of your land in his season and in the
first rain and the latter rain. It's the former and the latter rain.

God is saying listen, when you're right with me, I can be counted on. I
will open the windows of heaven and times of refreshing from the
presence of the Lord will come on you. This is God's norm for his people
when they're in the place where he wants them to be.

You live in the blessing of God and it'll grow your crops and you'll
have corn and your wine and your oil and I will send grass in the fields
for your cattle. It'll affect you on every level of your life. You may
eat, you may be full, but take heed to yourselves that your heart be not
deceived and you turn not aside and you serve other gods and worship
them and then the Lord's wrath will be kindled against you and he will
shut up heaven.

It becomes like brass. The heavens become brass, he says, in other
places and there is no rain. God shuts up heaven and the heavens become
like brass and the land will not yield her fruit and things get hard, he
says here, and you'll perish quickly off the land that the Lord gives to
you.

Oh, what a contrast Canaan was, a pure heavenly supply, not dirty old
filthy water but clean pure water. Can you imagine a guy out sitting on
a thing pumping like this when it starts this deluge of rain all around
him? He'd quickly get off that silly little bicycle and hold his hands
up like they do when rain comes when the ground is parched and they
would praise God even in countries that don't even know God. They praise
whoever's up there for rain when it's so dry.

It's a picture of the refreshing from God that we need, that he wants to
send when our hearts are loving him and fearing him and walking in his
ways. Does this make sense to you? It's a contrast, you see, that God is
giving his people before they step in, you see, appointed seasons for
appointed rains. You see, this is the background, friends, of the whole
verse in 2 Chronicles chapter 7 verse 14.

If I shut up heaven, if you were to read 2 Chronicles chapter 5 and 6,
you'd see the background that Solomon is dedicating the temple and
especially the altar. It's amazing, he builds a brass scaffold the size
of the altar in the tabernacle and he gets on it with his knees bound
and he's in the shape of a cross and he looks up and he prays before all
of the nation and sin is mentioned over and over. If because your people
sin and you shut up heaven and there is no rain and locusts come and
troubles come and bugs that devour and everything else, then, Lord, when
the people of God look back to this place, this holy sanctuary, this
place where you are and prayer will be heard, you will hear.

But there's not a man that doesn't sin. Chapter 6 says prayer 17 times
as the way to clear up the discrepancy when it's there. And so you see
the Lord fall on that group and then they offer tons of blood sacrifices
and they worship the Lord and that night Solomon goes to bed, remember?
And while he's asleep in his bed, the Lord comes and says, I've heard
your prayer.

And he says, this place I've chosen now to put my name there and it's
through other places that it's a house of prayer. It's a house where
people meet God and this is how the church is to be known, a place
that's a doorway for eternity, not just a fixer up for time. We're not
trying to fix men up for time.

We'd like to some, but the reason we fix them up for time is so we can
get them ready for eternity with the Lord in person. And, but see, we
don't, where are the cemeteries? I want to ask you where the cemeteries
at the churches. I'm going to tell you, cemeteries preach.

You got to walk through them all the time. They'll preach to you. You'll
be here before long.

You know, Ravenhill used to have a skull, a plastic skull on his desk.
And someone said, what's that? You a hundred years from now, is that a
healthy perspective or what? You see, you're like a vapor. You're like a
wind.

You'll be gone. How are you going to spend it? You see, that's the thing
we have to ask ourselves. And so Solomon gets this promise.

God says, listen, the heavens may be brass, but if my people, if my
people will then do these things before me in this place, then I will do
this everywhere. If they will, I will. Now who's got the determining
factor here in this whole equation? Well, appointed seasons for
appointed reigns.

Listen to this picture opened up a little bit more. You see the former
and the latter reign only a biblically idiot, biblically, I didn't mean
to say idiot, a biblically, you know, but it might apply, biblically
ignorant person would say that the former and the latter reign are not
clearly set forth as pictures of the outpouring of God's blessing from
his throne room. Even Peter says, this is that spoken of by the prophet
Joel when he talks about the former and latter reign being poured out,
Pentecost being the former.

Coming on the church to give her power to plant the seed and get the
harvest ready. You see, it's a perfect picture here and God is giving
that, you can count on me as long as you love and you trust me and you
love the Lord and fear him and respect him, I will send the rain. God
promised showers of blessing when that happens, life giving waters.

This is the way he designed it. And I the Lord will be faithful as you
love me. I'm trying to, I'm saying it over and over again so you get
this because it's going to click like this and you're going to see how
it's so relevant for you and for me.

It's a built in barometer. You see, we don't have a river like Nile in
Canaan to look to that we can do all these other things, at least we're
not supposed to. In Canaan, if there's no rain, then we have to realize,
wait a second, there's a reason.

Wait a second, because God said if we're loving him and walking with him
in an appropriate God honoring way and responding fully with all our
hearts to what he said, we can count on him, he'll be sending rain. So
if there is no rain, you've got to get on your knees to find out the
reason why. And so here you have a clear choice, how you're going to
live your life.

The pumping of the foot, get busy, get ingenious, new programs,
everything to prove how wonderful we are for God or when there's no real
authentic refreshing from on high, we say, Lord, there's a reason. And
you said if you're people that are called by your name, bow their knee,
humble themselves. The word humble means to bend there.

And if we'd come down, then you will show us the reasons and we can deal
with the real issues because the issue is not the weather, the issue is
the heart. You see, we have no earthly river of consequence and if the
heavens are dry and we know something's wrong, there is a spiritual
reason and the church, the people of that day must get on their knees to
find out what the problem really is. So God's people will try to
sidestep this.

Look at Jeremiah chapter 2. Turn there if you will. I'm asking you to
look at it with your eyeballs. These screens we put all the scriptures
up on have trained us not to take our own Bible to church anymore.

We need to mark our Bibles. We need to meditate in our Bibles. We need
to carry our Bibles.

In Jeremiah chapter 2, oh, what a day like ours, Jeremiah is. In
Jeremiah chapter 2, God says, he says in chapter 2 verse 1, go and cry
in the ears of Jerusalem saying thus says the Lord, I remember the
kindness, that's the Hebrew word chesed, which is the covenant word for
mercy and grace. It's the blood covenant of Abraham.

I remember you in the chesed of your youth, the love of your espousals,
meaning when we first got married, when you followed me in the
wilderness in a land that was not sown. Israel was holiness to the Lord.
But you see verse 5, what iniquity have your fathers found in me that
they've gone away far from me and have walked after vanity and become
vain.

I remember what it was like. And you see what it says here, verse 7, I
brought you into a beautiful country to eat the fruit of it and the
goodness thereof. But when you entered, you defiled my land and you made
my heritage an abomination.

And then you see four groups, the priests and those who handle the word
and the prophets and the pastors, they've all gone after the things that
were in the land. It's the spirit of the world. Verse 9, wherefore, I
will plead with you, says the Lord, and with your children's children,
when I plead, even your grandchildren, I'm going to try to get your
attention through them and everyone.

And I'm going to go look at Chitim and go look at Kedar and consider
them, these other pagan countries. Verse 11, has a nation, meaning a
lost nation, changed their gods? I mean, you don't see Islam changing
their God. They stick to it.

And it's not even the real God. But yet my people have changed their
glory for that which could never profit. And look at this thing he says,
be astonished, heavens, at this.

God is speaking to the heavens and saying, this is unusual in the land
of Canaan, but you're going to go barren. Be astonished, oh, heavens,
oh, and be terribly afraid and be desolate, says the Lord. He's cutting
off the rain.

And look what people respond. My people have committed two evils, verse
13. They've forsaken me, the fountain of living waters.

This is why it happened. I'm the fountainhead. I'm the giver of rain and
blessing.

But what my people have done, they've cut out cisterns, broken cisterns
that can hold no water. They've tried to conserve spiritual blessings
and they've made these cisterns, but they're cracked. Do you see the
picture? Man trying to avoid the real issue, sidestep the fact they've
got to get on their knees and find out why the heavens are brass.

They do all kinds of things to just hold on, and just barely make it
work until whenever. And then so you see over in chapter three, look at
there. The Lord says to them, I wish I had time to really open this up.

Chapter three, verse two, lift up your eyes to the high places. This is
idol shrines. And see where you haven't been laying down, meaning in
prostitution.

In the ways you've set for them, like the Arabian in the wilderness, God
describes his people like an Arabian horse that's in heat, right there.
That's snuffing the air and going around offering herself to any horse
that will come along. You have polluted the land with your whoredoms and
with your wickedness.

Therefore, therefore the showers have been withheld and there's been no
latter rain. You have the forehead of a prostitute. And the scary thing
is you refuse to be ashamed.

I spoke to you early rising up with prophets and I warned you, I warned
you, but it says in one place that I did this and you rejected it until
there was no remedy. There's a measure that we fill up and we pass it
and there's no turning back. I don't know if we're there yet, but I'll
tell you one thing, we're close.

We're really close. And God is speaking. And you see, I'm not talking
about the world saying, oh, we've grieved God.

I'm talking about the church, you and me, listening to the real knife
edge of God's holy sacrificial word coming in. His eyes are like a flame
of fire. He's like a priest and he cuts us.

All things are naked and open before the eyes of him with whom we have
to do. And he looks and he takes out things inside that defile so that
we might be a spotless sacrifice and offering to him. So God's people
sidestepped this.

And if you were to look at verse 13 of chapter three, only acknowledge
your iniquity that you've transgressed against the Lord, your God, and
you've scattered your ways to strangers. And under every green tree, you
have not obeyed my voice, says the Lord, turn for I'm married to you.
I'm married to you.

Oh, that word backsliding is over and over. It says in Proverbs 14, 14,
that the backslider in heart is filled with his own ways. What is
backsliding? It's a person that knew Jesus and loved him, but gradually
because of blessing and other, his own ways creep back in and he becomes
earthly.

There are many among you. I've told you before. And I tell you with
tears, weeping says, Paul, they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.

Now they wouldn't say that the enemies of Christ, they would say we love
Jesus. He says, they're the enemies of the cross of Christ. And here's
how you know, their God is their belly.

They live for what fulfills them. Meats for the belly and the belly for
meats. And they, they just do the next thing.

They act like a big goose bump walking around. Their God is their belly.
Their glory is in their shame.

They are boasting and placing confidence in the things that if they knew
the cross, they would be ashamed of and they mind earthly things. Whose
end is destruction from such turn away? He says, listen, our citizenship
is in heaven from whence we're looking for the appearing of our Lord
Jesus Christ. And he's going to change our vile body into one that's
just like his.

That's the last thing that'd be done. Everything else he's going to have
done when he comes for you, your spirit and your soul are going to be
complete. He's going to give you a new body.

Well, God's people often try to sidestep this matter. And this is why
Elijah, a man just like us, it says in James five of like passions. And
that was people that says they were afflicted.

They, they were oppressed. They had sin. He was a man of like passions,
but Elijah knew God.

He preached one sermon in three and a half years. It was about 25 words,
walked into the equivalent of the white house and said, thus saith the
Lord. James said he'd been praying before that.

He walked in like a comet across a dark sky, walked into Ahab. And he
says, thus said the Lord for one throne room to another. It's not going
to rain anymore.

Thus saith the Lord God before whom I stand. It's not going to rain
anymore. According to my word.

And God shut the heavens off. He, see it wasn't Elijah's word. He took
the word of God here in Deuteronomy and it became his in real prayer.

And God said, God was waiting for someone to enforce his word in real
prayer. And God cut it off. And Elijah went, he hid himself and he
learned this rough prophet had to go and live off a roadkill and, uh,
and from a little brook and alone.

And then he went and he lived with a widow and her son. That'll teach
you tenderness. That'll teach you tenderness.

And that, and the first, it's the first resurrection in the Bible. He
got on that boy and he raised him from the dead and presented him to his
mom. And she says, now by this, I know.

See the ministry of life, not just making the barrel multiply and not
just what you said with your lips, you've ministered life. And now I
know that you're a man of God and that the word that's in your mouth is
really from him. Oh, what a glorious thing that Elijah could do, but it
was his word.

And he prayed, he always was praying to bring the word, thy kingdom
come, thy will be done. Let it happen here. Like you say, it's supposed
to happen, but it's not.

It laid hold of it and brought it to be in our life. This is a picture
of our spiritual life. It's a lot easier to go back to Egypt than to
face the implications of the bowing of the knee.

In Isaiah 30, you should read it. In Isaiah 31, the Lord says, woe to
those who go down for Egypt and trust in horses and chariots and won't
trust the name of their God. Listen, the horses in Egypt are flesh.

They cannot help you. Uh, listen, in quietness and in confidence would
have been your strength and returning and rest. I would have blessed
you, but you didn't want that.

Therefore, will the Lord wait that he may be gracious. He will wait that
he may have mercy upon you because the Lord, your God is a God of
judgment. And that word means method.

Prayer is his method, being honest in his presence. You see, which word
describes you today or me? I've got to take this test too. The pumping
of the foot or the bowing of the knee.

Which land are you living in? Which place are you seeking to be in? You
see, the pumping of the foot or the bowing of the knee. In our day,
we've got all kinds of emotions and promotions and devotions and, uh,
you name it, locomotion. You name every kind of ocean of stuff, but we
have very little real devotion to the person, not the program, but the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see, we are running the church of our day on the momentum of a godly
ancestry and it's running down. And we're, we're obviously aware of that
and we can see it so clearly. The answer for spiritual drought is not in
some new program or some activity to get people involved at a new level
or some ingenious new social media.

God could have hung CNN kind of stuff in the sky with the word
continually being just run across the screen. He is not interested in
just getting information out. He is interested in a holy church being a
living demonstration of who he is in revival and in the presence of the
Lord.

And that is what he is waiting for. But when we see no rain, we have got
to be honest enough to face this real situation. The church in America
must get on her knees and say, Lord God, what is going on? You see,
there's two ways to have revival as we call it.

I'm telling you, it's a buzzword. Man's way is to pump it up. Get all
excited.

You think you can praise your way into revival? You think you can? You
cannot. It's a deception. Praise is what happens after we see who he is.

And if you're burdened for revival, let me tell you something. I cannot
imagine a man that's genuinely burdened for the condition of the church
trying to get her to, it's like singing songs to a person of the heavy
spirit. It says it's like vinegar on the teeth.

They may do it. You see people there squinting as hard as they can
trying to praise their way into revival when they're living in a home
that's full of things that are killing them. And they come and they have
a goose bump and they think that God is blessed and they fill their
bucket until the next week that they come back and fill their bucket.

God has rivers for you. He has fountains for you. He has pouring out
refreshing for you, but you're going to have to do it God's way.

And God's way is not to pump it up. God's way is to pray it down. And
God's way is not through diligent planning like the world says.

And the church says it's so often diligent planning. God's way is
desperate prayer. Desperate prayer.

And it's not organizing. It's agonizing. That's what he wants.

And you see we come over here, we try to lift man up. We want to be
sensitive to man and all this. And this person's seeking.

He's not seeking God. If you really get honest with him, he'll tell you
the guy of his life because there's none that seeks God. You see we're
trying to lift up man.

And God over here says when you lift up Jesus, because when you lift up
Jesus, that's when I'll draw all men to me. See the world says pick
yourself up. God says put yourself down.

And so it's self-acceptance over on the way we're doing it today. And
over here it's renounce yourself. It's not just self denial, practicing
self going without this amount of money and this amount of comfort and
this amount of preference.

It's not self going without this and that. Isn't self wonderful? Look
what I'm doing without. I love my righteous self.

No, it's deny yourself. It's the very core of the problem. It's our
self-life that we deny and we come away from it.

You see in man's way of doing it, pumping up, it's man's thoughts. The
best scholars say this. Or some of you have a problem in revival.

It's when God says thou art the man, thus saith the Lord. Thus says the
Lord. Oh you see church activities.

Come and do this. Come and do that. Well that's different than
obedience, isn't it? Obey the Lord and do what he says.

Over in this side we're led of men of standing. Men who owns the bank
and does all these things. Over here in the real, it's men of kneeling.

Who get on their face and who hear from heaven and who lead the church
and who are full of the Holy Spirit. And it's not the ballot box that's
going to save America. It's the mourners bench for the church.

If we come and get on our face. But if we do not, there is not a
stimulus program that will ever even anything is just be temporary.
Because there's no repentance.

Have you seen repentance lately? When was the last time you heard a
message of repentance? That's what you're supposed to go back and give.
You're supposed to go back and explain this stuff to people and say,
listen, listen Lord. I want to, I want to be a person that's used.

I'm tired of living for happiness. I want to call the church to holiness
as a body. So a few more moments and I will be through.

Emphasis, not on few. If my people, which are called by my name, I said,
that's not the world. That's you and me.

Christian. If the people of God will do something, then I will do
something. See, that puts it in our court.

We can say how we want to about a, but God is saying you draw near to me
and I will draw near to you, but you're going to have to do it my way.
I'm a jealous God. I love you, but you're going to have to turn, turn
your joy into heaviness and be afflicted more.

And what's been far off is going to have to come. You read James there
and chat in that chapter and compare it with second Chronicles. And
you'll find them precisely parallel when God is calling us to return to
him.

If my people will, then I will. This is the promise of a covenant
keeping God. He will keep his covenant.

It's a responsibility of love. It's a moral obligation that each of us
face the issues, not just for ourselves, but for the church as a whole.
Daniel is one of the few men on the Bible.

Only two have nothing really bad said about them. But yet when he
confessed the sin of the nation, it was us. It was our in chapter nine.

Oh, what a confession as he prayed and confessed on himself as an
intercessor, the sin of the church. So you see, it says here, listen,
the preparation of the heart belongs to man. And the answer comes from
the Lord.

It's like a sailboat when you're on a Lake and you see a wind coming and
you know, Elijah, I'm going to appear. You're going to appear to Ahab
and I'm going to send rain, but you got to get the boat position. So he
goes and he gets rid of the prophets of Baal.

Fire falling in first Kings 18 is not the main thing in that chapter.
It's the purifying effect of getting the false prophets out of the way
so that God then can send the rain. And that's what he wants to do in
the church.

I mean, confession of sin is an awesome thing. Thank God for it. And
when we come and we make rest restitution and relationships, that's a
good thing, but that's just dealing with the false things.

We need the rain. We need the rain to fall. We need the Lord to do what
he's promised to do, but God will never do apart from prayer what he's
promised to do in answer to prayer.

He will wait until we do it. If my people, which are called by my name,
you count on this, if they will humble themselves. He's left the
initiative with us.

We've had all kinds of days around second Chronicles. We've had national
days. People get up there.

We always have many music groups come. I'm all for that, but we miss
this first base. It's like if you miss first base, you can run
magnificently second and third and come into home, but they'll call you
out every time.

We heard about it last night. Humble ourselves. This word you see is a
fresh dealing with the cross or brokenness.

It's Matthew 5 3. I was rejoicing last night that he says the poor in
spirit. The word is patokos. It means a blind beggar and the blind
Bartimaeus was a patokos.

That's what God says we're to become. I can't see what I need to see. I
don't have what I need to have.

Oh God, have mercy on me. Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. See,
this humbling of ourselves, it means to turn from pride.

When the big I in sin is crossed out, you have the S-O-E in son. And
when the big I in live is crossed out, you have the L-O-V-E, the love of
God. And that's what he says.

Isaiah saw the Lord and he says, I am undone. God wants to undo my I.
Has your I been undone? I got to humble myself. I got to bend my knee.

I got to get before God, not just for myself and my family. I need the
blessing of God. But Lord, your precious church, your church is without
the refreshing from on high.

We're doing all these other things, calling it blessed and trying to
work it up. We've had 50 years of the most expensive evangelistic
programs in the world. In North America.

But if you look at the real statistics, you will see this will hurt.
North America is the only nation, the only area on earth where the
church is in decline, despite it. And people will admit it if you get
them to be honest.

Oh, you may have nickels and noses and numbers and swelling, all this
and that. But when it comes right down to it, you want to know how
healthy your church is, see your missions and see your prayer. That's
the measure of a church.

Fresh dealing with his cross, brokenness that's coming into the light
and, and in getting real with God and with yourself and with others.
We've got to take off our mask. We've had a great times of prayer in
here, but if we're going to see this happen, we've got to get down to
the real deal, down to the real deal with God and let him really have
his way.

Have you ever shed real tears over your sin? Have you? And maybe you
say, well, I haven't. Well, if you haven't, have you ever wondered why
you haven't? High thoughts of myself result in low thoughts and reveal
low thoughts of God. If God is just a half an inch bigger than me, then
how big a cross does it take to bridge that gap between good old me and
glorious God? It's about a half inch cross.

But if I see him as he is glorious, awesome as Isaiah saw him. And then
I see myself, there's a bridge no man can cross, a gap. And how big is
the cross then? Oh, God forbid that we should boast, save in the cross
of Christ our Lord.

It is that thing, the wisest, most informed worshipers in eternity are
worshiping him about the atonement and the cross around the throne. When
you see it, that's what they're singing about. You don't outgrow it.

You don't move into more loving things. It is love in action. So this is
the first great step you see.

Do I want God enough in my life and in my family and in my church to be
honest? Do I want him enough to really get dead honest? Literally come
to the cross and get dead honest. Turn from pride. Can you say this with
revelation? In my flesh dwells no good thing.

Edgar and I were talking about that this morning. We have no room to
boast. And if we ever even subtly think we do, my attitude toward the
cross will determine the altitude of my life.

So God works through the channel of a broken heart. And the heart must
be plowed. God's people in our day, in our churches, must unite together
and get on our faces or our knees, bend our knees and say, Oh God,
freshly deal with us.

Maybe you agree with this, but somehow inside subtly you think it
applies to others and not you. That's how I tend to be. I'll hear a word
that's glorious, and I say, Boy, that's a good word.

I hope so and so heard that. Lord, I've been praying for them. And the
Lord said, That was for you.

You see, it's for me. It's for you to humble myself, to get down and
turn from pride and have a fresh dealing with the cross. Not just Jesus
dying for you, but with you dying with Him.

Secondly, it says, If my people will humble themselves and if they will
pray. You know there's 12 Hebrew words for prayer. This one here means
to judge oneself habitually in the presence of God.

It means this is a fresh dealing, not with the cross, but with the
crown. I deal with His Lordship and His right to reign, as they say,
around the throne. Thou art worthy and you have created all things and
for thy pleasure, not my pleasure.

They are and were created, O God. And so this means I've got to come
before the Lord and I've got to let judgment begin at the house of God.
It's time now that it has.

And we've got to come into agreement with God and His Word about what's
disjointed or out of touch in our life. And so this then, humble myself
is turned from pride. This is turned from prayerlessness.

If I said, Do you believe in prayer? You would say, Yes, I do. But my
question, my wife says, If you believe in prayer, why don't you go to
prayer meeting? Don't you just hate it when your wife says something to
you like that? My problem is I listen to my wife when I shouldn't and I
don't listen to when I should. That's every man's problem, I hope, not
just mine.

I mean, I hope it's not. You know what I'm saying. I'm trying to dig out
of this one.

But we've got to be specific. What is it that needs changing? Homologio,
to say the same word. You see, with you, it's a bitter, angry spirit.

With me, I'm just discerning. That's how I look at other people. But
with me, with you, it's sensuality and immorality.

With me, it's just, I'm just oversexed. That's what we say about
ourselves or something like that. We say, God wants me to be happy.

Yes, He does, but He wants you to be miserable until you're holy. Then
happy are the holy. He wants us, He wants holiness to make us happy, not
just happenstance, you see.

So this then, you see, humble myself is the pouring spirit. That's the
bent knee. That's the coming and turning from pride.

Praying is the contrite heart because I see in His presence as I come, I
see myself as I am and I get specific. It's a contrite heart. Blessed
are those who mourn.

That's the second run on Jacob's ladder. So, Lord, there's no more
controversy. I've been holding out.

I've been giving you 90%, but this last 10%, wonder where Peter got that
boat that he went fishing in. You ever thought about that? I said, I
wonder where he got that boat. I'm going fishing after he'd seen the
risen Lord.

He was so disappointed in himself and the Lord appeared to him in mercy
and disemboweled his self-life. And he, you never hear much about Peter,
do you, until Pentecost. He comes there and suddenly Peter realizes it
wasn't Peter's consecration that was important, it was Jesus indwelling.

And he began to preach and the thing, the area that he had most
dishonored the Lord in, he got up and says, you denied the holy and the
just. He was able to be totally healed and recovered. See, be specific.

Search me, O God, and know my heart. That word search, O'Hallisby writes
in a book on prayer, but he's a Norwegian. In the Norse, he says that
word is the word ransack.

It's like if you went back to your home and you found all your drawers
pulled out and your clothes scattered everywhere, a burglar's been there
and ransacked your home. That's what you say, search me, O God, ransack
my heart. And look in every drawer and test my mind, know my thoughts,
and see if there's any wicked way within me.

Did you know that when God judged the world before in Noah's day, that
it wasn't for the violence and corruption that filled the earth. He
says, every imagination of men's hearts are only evil continually. He
judged the world for its thought life.

So that's why Jesus said, if you have this in your heart, it's the same
and worse even than doing it. It'll always come out. Be sure your sin
will find you out.

So this is the second great essential that we would humble ourselves and
we would pray. And from the book of Acts all the way through history,
this great step of a fresh dealing with the throne of God, the crown,
it's when we come and we deal with what's out of sort. And it's always a
brokenness that's with desperation.

Oh, how the Lord's put this conference in order for us to get a hold of.
Desperation. If my people will humble themselves, that's turned from
pride.

If my people will pray, that's turned from prayerlessness. And if they
will seek my face, we've sought him for everything else. We've sought
him for what his hands can do.

We've sought him for his blessing. We've sought him for his help. We've
sought him for gifts.

But a face is how you know somebody, especially in their eyes. I love to
look people in the eye and say, Jesus loves you. And they can look right
back into your soul and it doesn't bounce back at them.

It's a glorious thing when you can go out and you know you're nothing
and somebody says, you're pathetic. And you say, I know it. I know it.

But Jesus is awesome. He's glorious, you see. How well do you know him?
Seek his face, you see.

Because seeking him for who he is, that's what we're talking about here.
Humbling yourself, turn from pride, turn from prayerlessness and pray,
and turn from passivity. Seek, that's a diligent word.

This word in the Hebrew is so aggressive. It's an earnest word. It's
afresh, dealing with his calling.

What is that? Intimacy. He's calling you to a continuing relationship
that's like a honeymoon love. Call into the fellowship of his son.

It's a holy desperation. And you're gripped with an urgency. I mean, do
you feel this urgency of our day? Do you? A zeal for him.

You can't stand it when you hear his name dishonored. I mean, you've got
to barge in. You just have to.

Doesn't matter what happens to you. Without faith, it is impossible to
please God. Whoever comes to God must believe that he is.

Not he exists, brother. Sorry. But it's he is.

It means he is everything the scriptures says. He is. I am.

He is. And second, he is that he is a rewarder of those who casually
inquire after him. Diligently.

Diligently. Seek him diligently. The priority.

The main thing. What motivates me? What motivates you? How do you spend
your free time? What makes you laugh? What makes you cry? That's what
God wants to deal with. Seek his face and let him have this part of us.

Once I see his face, you see, and I understand I turn from that
passivity. Then I begin in his light to see light. And I see the
seriousness of all darkness.

I see the seriousness of things. And so God then, like he did with
Isaiah, turns him to look at himself. And he says, woe is me.

I am undone. After he sees God. And that's what it says.

He says, and turn from your wicked ways. That's a turning from
pollution. Turn from pride.

Turn from prayerlessness. Turn from your passivity. And turn from
pollution.

See, now these are these are people of God. Now we look at the people in
the church, and very few people would ever say our ways are wicked. We
would say, I have a little problem.

Or I have an attitude deal. Or a relationship is out of order. But God
says, this is the great practical step.

This is the response. When God speaks, I move with fear. And I respond.

And I turn when I see him from what God calls wickedness. You may think
that unforgiveness is just a problem. God says, it's wickedness.

Why is it so wicked? Because of who it's against. Not even the size of
it. And it's because of what it hinders in your family.

And in me. And in the church. You see, things like that we often
dismiss.

We don't want to call ourselves wicked. But once I begin to humble
myself. And really pray.

Deal with his crown. And deal with his calling to intimacy. God shows me
who he is.

And you see, I take him seriously with all my life. The books I read.
The things I eat.

Everything. It doesn't matter where I want to go to college. He might
want to send Daniel to Babylon University.

He'll show you. He'll order your steps in his word. You don't have to go
from counselor to counselor all the time.

If you get a word from God. You see, what I once winked at as
respectable sin. Now is intolerable.

You find in every time when God's spirit falls in revival. People who
are there who aren't in on the cutting wave. They start crying out to
God.

Saying, I can't live with this anymore. Because suddenly what has been
so easily overlooked becomes unbearable in the presence of a holy God.
So what am I saying here? I'm at the end here.

I've got to act on what God shows me. Not just here. You got to listen.

You got to come to the word as if I want to hear. I want you to sanctify
me. I don't want just help.

I want you to change me. I want to look into the mirror of your word.
Beholding as in a glass, a mirror like in the tabernacle.

The glory of the Lord. I see you and I'm changed by your Holy Spirit
into the same image that I see. But I'm not going to be like I used to
be.

It goes on to say, using the word of God craftily or deceitfully. Trying
to play dumb like I don't understand it when I do. I'm just not sure
what that passage means.

Right. No rain. Fresh dealing with his character.

Holiness. Deal with his character. He's a holy God.

He's a holy God. No more excuses. He died to set you free.

He set me free from that thing that I excuse. You know, we excuse
ourselves in this country. I tell you, it's unhealthy if you've never
been out of the country.

Maybe you can't go, but you need to realize that God is bigger than USA
Christianity. We are prayed for by the rest of the world. It doesn't
mean that you have to despise and start calling names.

I'm not trying to call his holy church names today because I intend, if
he should so require it, to lay my life down for her and I want to
daily. I was reading Revelation one day and I saw all seven churches and
I was saying how wonderful Philadelphia and others were. He says, look
at it again.

Every word to each church is to all churches. And you don't have a right
to pick and choose which church you think is. If they're my church,
they're my church and you're to lay your life down for her.

That's what Paul did to the churches that weren't like Corinth. He laid
his life down for him and said, you, I'm giving you trouble. Others come
and teach you prosperity and all that, but I'm the off-scouring.

I'm the Ajax that scrubs the pot. I'm your spiritual father and be
imitators of me. That's what we're to do.

To lay our lives down for this gospel. Whoever loses his life for my
sake in the gospel will really find it. And when you do, that's the
thing he said more than anything else he said in the Gospels, and when
you do, when I do, we will find our fullest and highest joy and being
used by him to be his hands and feet as the body of Christ, the fullness
of him who fills all in and all.

You've been very patient. You've listened. At least you act patient on
the outside.

But my question is, will you do it? You see, because until I act on what
I know, I am simply an intelligent religious rebel. I am. I know these
are tough.

These are tough words. So we can try every man-made way there is in the
universe to save our nation. We can blame the society for ungodliness
when that's all you can expect from them.

But the real issue is look at the church and we've got to bring
ourselves down. There's a way that seems right to a man, but the end
thereof are the ways of death. Every man can do what's right in his own
eyes, and still it can be evil in the sight of the Lord, as he says
seven times in Judges.

We've got to quit admiring what we call Christian heritage and quit and
start bowing our knees to find out why the rain is not falling on the
church that he died to sanctify. And be able to look at her, oh my dear
friend used to always say to me, oh he wants a church as terrible as an
army with banners. How vivid is that? You see an army with banners
walking toward you, praising, triumphant.

This is what the church is to be in our day. More than conquerors, not
just getting by. A sweet aroma of the risen Lord Jesus Christ in the
church, working by his working which works in us mightily.

Great works of God always follow the bowing of the knee. They always do,
and they always will, because his method is honesty in prayer. The
greatest need in our land is a humble, broken, praying, surrendered
church.

And when that happens, the world will say the Lord has done great things
for them. We're amazed. And it won't be overload, it'll be overflow.

Overflow. Humble. Turn from pride.

Pray. Turn from prayerlessness. Seek my face.

Turn from pessimism. Stir up the gift of God within you. And turn from
the wicked ways.

Turn from pollution. Whatever the Lord shows you. But I want to pray
with you.

Let's bow. Lord Jesus, if you marked iniquities, who could stand? But
there is forgiveness with you that you might be feared. Oh God, blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity, whose sins are
covered, in whose spirit there is no guile.

Oh God, thank you that you have made a way. You are the truth about that
way, who is yourself. And you are the life we need.

You are that from which the river of God emanates. And Lord, you want to
take the throne and sit there that the rivers of water might come from
the glorified Lamb of God on the inside. God, Lord Jesus, we sit here
today so needy.

We measure ourselves by ourselves, but Lord, you measure, not as man
sees. And so in Jesus name, would you have your way with every heart
here. And may we not pump our feet in a day that's so urgent.

But may we get on our knees with others of like heart. And seek out the
reason that you would show us as to what has offended a holy God in the
love relationship to which you called us, so that we might be those who
open the heavens in prayer, like Elijah. Lord, have mercy on us, and I
pray you'll bind this word to our heart.

And may it bring us not up, but put us on our faces before you, where we
belong. Thank you, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen.

Well, I and and think about this. I didn't ask you for a response here.
Because I don't think you need to meditate on these things and do what
the Spirit of God whispers in love to your heart.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/vOjjRoFUR6A.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/al-whittinghill/revival-in-the-land/
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