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  PLOUGHMAN AND THE REAPER
  by David Guzik
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of revival, focusing on
the need for personal, church, and global revival. It highlights the
historical impact of revivalists like Dr. J. Edwin Orr and the call for
a deep, quality revival that brings forth lasting fruit. The speaker
urges humility, dedication to God's work, and readiness for a powerful
outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Duration: 44:51

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the importance of revival, focusing on the need
for personal, church, and global revival. It highlights the historical
impact of revivalists like Dr. J. Edwin Orr and the call for a deep,
quality revival that brings forth lasting fruit. The speaker urges
humility, dedication to God's work, and readiness for a powerful
outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

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CONTENT
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Good afternoon everyone. You know, I come from an area in the world
where churches are built in former supermarkets and factory zones and
warehouses and such. To climb up steps into a pulpit such as this, it's
a great treat.

It's a great treat for me to speak to you. This is my second Revival
Conference. Last year I was with the group in Scotland and had a
wonderful time.

Though I do confess that I feel somewhat out of place. I'm just a Bible
teacher, an expositor, and if God uses me to benefit his body in any
way, it's mostly as a Bible teacher and as an expositor. I'm not a great
preacher, still less am I really a prophet like some of the brothers
we've heard this conference.

But I am a Bible teacher with a great love and a great passion, a great
interest in Revival. I'm interested in Revival biblically because it is
a profoundly biblically phenomenon. I'm interested in Revival
historically.

When I went to university, that was the major area of my studies, was in
history. And I'm astounded by the historical evidence and phenomenon of
Revival. I'm interested in Revival having been a pastor for some 20
years.

I'm interested in Revival pastorally. I know that the church of Jesus
Christ needs Revival. But also, and maybe I should say especially, I am
interested in Revival personally.

But because I have experienced tremendous seasons of personal Revival in
my own life, and with one of them that was centered around this great
interest that I started developing in Revival through my interest in a
great man of God who has gone home to heaven for some 22 years now, a
man named Dr. J. Edwin Orr. He was an Ulster man, but God used him to
impact the world in a mighty way. I never knew him when he was alive,
although I heard him a few times as a young pastor in conferences.

It really kind of torments me right now. He lived just a few miles away
from me. As a young pastor, I could have visited him often, but I was
just ignorant and too busy.

Now, having heard him as a young pastor on a few occasions, I got some
of his books and used bookstores. I would see a title by J. Edwin Orr,
and I'd pick it up and I'd put it in my library. I'll read that
sometime.

Well, that sometime turned out to be a trip that I took one time to go
at a conference on the other side of the nation. As I would do, and as
you probably do sometimes, you're going to take a trip, you take a book
to read with you. I remembered this book by J. Edwin Orr on my bookshelf
called This is the Victory.

I took it off, I put it in my bag, and I started reading it during my
travels, and I was profoundly touched by that book. It described his
travels as a young man throughout the United States, going from east to
west, and up into Canada, and going over all the United States,
preaching the message of revival as a young man. And I tell you, it just
spoke to my heart so powerfully about what God can do in a work of
revival, but both in his day and especially in our own day, and I
started getting my hands on as much stuff from Dr. J. Edwin Orr as I
could.

I found out that there was really very few of his resources on the
internet, and so I was happy when the website JEdwinOrr.com was founded.
And it's just an attempt to get his materials, his audio materials, some
print materials. I recommend it to you highly.

JEdwinOrr.com. It's a really wonderful resource. Well, I learned through
all of this that there are amazing times of rapid advance in the work of
God on this earth. Do you know that? Now, you know that in your own
spiritual life, don't you? You know that there are seasons of rapid
spiritual advance in your own Christian life, right? I trust that some
of you here are experiencing that or have begun to experience it at this
conference, but it's true for the body of Christ as a whole.

And again, so much of this was communicated to me by this ministry of
Dr. J. Edwin Orr. As a young man on fire for God in Belfast, he left a
good paying job in the middle of the Great Depression, believing that
God would use him as he traveled all about the United Kingdom and then
all about the world to promote and to prepare God's people for revival.
And he did it all by faith.

He left with less than a pound in his pocket. He trusted God every day
along the way, and he came back with less than a pound in his pocket.
But God had provided every need, not only for him, but for his widowed
mother at home.

Now, later on, J. Edwin Orr went on to become a great scholar of the
Bible and a great scholar of revival. So great of a scholar that F. F.
Bruce, the wonderful Christian writer and commentator and scholar, he
said this of Dr. J. Edwin Orr. He said, Some men study history, some men
write about history, and some men make history.

As far as the history of revival is concerned, J. Edwin Orr has done all
three. And it's true. Now, he never lost his great passion for the
reality of revival.

And I don't want to lose it either. So I want to spend in the few
moments I have with you now, taking a look at a passage that Brother
Frank read the first time we were together here at the conference. He
read from Amos chapter 9, and I'd like you to turn in your Bibles to
Amos chapter 9, beginning at verse 13.

We read there, Amos chapter 9, verse 13. Behold, the days are coming,
says the Lord, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the
treader of grapes, him who sows seed. The mountains shall drip with
sweet wine, and all the hills shall be full of rain, and the rivers
shall flow with it.

Now, the book of Amos is filled with many strong warnings to God's
people. In their prosperity, the people of Israel almost forgot God
completely, but he didn't forget them. God, in his graciousness, he sent
to them a bold prophet, a prophet like the simple farmer Amos, a prophet
like some of the men that we've heard together here during this
conference, and he sent those prophets to his people to turn his people
back.

God knew that they would not turn back, and he said so through Amos, and
so God pronounced judgment upon the people of Israel through the prophet
Amos. Let me read to you some of the strong words of judgment against
the people of Israel found in the book of Amos. For thus says the Lord,
for three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away
its punishment, because they have despised the law of the Lord, and have
not kept his commandments.

Their lies lead them astray, lies which their father has followed, but I
will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of
Jerusalem. That's from chapter 2, verses 4 and 5. That's a heavy word of
judgment, is it not? One more, from chapter 5, starting at verse 21. I
hate, I despise your feast days, and I do not savor your sacred
assemblies.

Though you offer me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not
accept them. I will not regard your fattened peace offerings. Take away
from me the noise of your songs, for I will not hear the melody of your
stringed instruments.

That's a severe word of judgment from the prophet of God to his people,
and would not a similar word of judgment be accurately heard in many
churches today? As we've heard, and I bear the risk of repeating what my
other brothers have said before, but there is so often a mechanical
spirit in the church today. The kind of spirit where the operations of
the church could continue just fine without the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, without the instructions of the Word of God, because we've got
our system, we've got our plan, we've got our mechanism. You just wind
it up and you let it go.

It's something we need to confront, and we need to hear the word of
God's judgment, the word, should I say of his wrath. His wrath against,
yes, the culture at large, but you know where judgment begins. Where
does judgment begin? Judgment begins at the house of God.

And really, is that not the first work of revival? It's God bringing his
judgment to the house of God. It's a cleansing judgment, it's a
purifying judgment. Might I say it's a blessed judgment, is it not? But
it is judgment nonetheless.

And nevertheless, God would not abandon his failing people in the days
of Amos, and he promised them an ultimate resolution of restoration. And
there in the rich images that came very easily to a farmer like Amos,
God promised remarkable reinvigoration of the nation. He promised to
make them alive again.

Did you see what he said? Look in at chapter 9, verse 13. He announced
that behold, the days are coming. And under God's inspiration, the
prophet Amos ended his words to the nation.

The whole book is filled with judgment, but it's almost as if God
refused. I cannot end on judgment, God says, I must give them hope. I
must point them towards a revival, a restoration, a reinvigoration, and
that's exactly what he did.

He looked forward to a day of great prosperity, both materially and
spiritually. And under the reign of Jeroboam II, they had material
abundance, but not spiritual abundance. God promised to restore them to
spiritual vitality.

And you know in those days, I would say that Israel had no idea how good
it could be. They were in love with the material prosperity that
Jeroboam II, under his reign, had given them, but they were far from
God. They had no idea.

They had no idea how they were selling out the good things of God for a
mess of pottage, the material treats from this world. This is how good
it could be. Shall I read it to you again? When the plowman shall
overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who sows seed, the
mountain shall drip with sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with
it.

Those days would come, and with those words, the prophet Amos described
the miraculous and amazing blessing of God that would come upon his
people. And you can just imagine what the scene would be like, right?
You know how it works, right? Now, I'm not a farmer. I've never been a
farmer.

I've never lived on a farm. About all I know about farms is what I see
in the movies and such. But listen, I know enough, I know what a plowman
is.

He's the guy who plows the field. He prepares it for planting. The
plowman does his work, right? There he is plowing the field, and then
after the plowman comes the man who plants the seed, right? He scatters
it, he plants it, and then after him comes the man who waters the seed.

And then after that, the seeds grow, the harvest comes in, and then
comes in the reaper. Now, wouldn't you say that the work of the plowman
and the work of the reaper is somewhat separated, right? The reaper
doesn't begin his work the day after the plowman starts. But did you see
what Amos tells him? I'll read it to you again.

When the plowman shall overtake the reaper. There's the reaper doing his
job, and he's bringing in such a big, such a great crop has grown that
his work of reaping extends into the time when the plowman must get
busy, and the plowman is pushing the reaper out of the way. I must
plant, I must plant.

The harvest is so rich, it's so abundant. God has blessed us so much
that the plowman is running over on top of the reaper, and as he says,
the treader of grapes, him who sows seed. In other words, there is such
a great blessing, the magnitude of it, the amount of it is so great that
the plowman overtakes the reaper.

Now, this shows us something. It shows us that when God sends blessing
and restoration, the fruit comes quickly. Now, normally, the work of
plowman and reaper work apart.

Their work is separated by many months, but in these unique seasons of
blessing and restoration, they bump into each other. The crops are so
big, and we pray for such quick fruit to happen among us. There have
been such seasons.

There have been such seasons recorded in the Bible. There have been many
such seasons recorded in history. I'm standing in the pulpit that was
basically ground zero for one such quick outpouring, when some 100,000
souls were brought to God in a period of months.

A remarkably quick harvest, would you not say? Think of another one that
touched this land some 150 years ago, the great work 1859 or so. You
know, it didn't begin here, though. It didn't even begin in America,
where it is popularly thought to begin.

It began in Canada. You see, at that time, the work of evangelical
Christianity had been in decline for about 12 years. Churches were
shrinking, or at least failing to keep up with the growth rate, and many
people had become very spiritually disillusioned, often because of the
fall of William Miller and his great prophetic expectation that Jesus
would return in 1844.

When he did not, there was a great falling away. There were many people
disillusioned by this. And then also, it was a season in the United
States of great financial prosperity.

People were making a lot of money, and when people make a lot of money,
it's easy for them to forget about God. The issue of slavery, great
social issues, also divided the church in a remarkable way in the United
States. It seemed like nothing could bring them together.

People were disillusioned because of prophetic failures. People were
making money and materialistic, and people were divided on great social
issues. But sometime before 1857, a British Methodist named William
Arthur preached a series of powerful sermons in Ohio, and then he
published these messages in a book titled Tongues of Fire.

Arthur asked his readers to get back to Pentecost. Now friends, this was
before the Pentecostal movement. But he was asking his readers to get
back to Pentecost, to seek God for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit
and power, and he appealed to them to pray to God to send upon his
church a new Pentecost.

His book concluded with a remarkable prayer. Let me read it to you now.
Listen carefully.

This was the prayer. Descend upon all the churches, renew Pentecost in
this our age. Baptize thy people generally again with tongues of fire.

Crown this century with a revival of pure religion, greater than that of
the last century, greater than that of the first, and greater than any
demonstration of the Spirit ever yet given to man. Evangelicals of all
denominations read this book and were turned on fire by it, and many
said that within a few years this extraordinary prayer was answered. The
early stages of this revival saw concerted concerts of prayer, if you
could say, all over the United States and Canada.

Denominations were officially committed to prayer for revival and very
much engaged upon it. For example, here's a prayer recorded at a
Presbyterian General Assembly in the period before the revival. They
said, we would upon our bended knees offer the prayer of Habakkuk, O
Lord, revive thy work.

Next to a state of actual revival is the sense of its need and the
struggle to attain it. At any sacrifice of treasure, toil, or time, we
must trust that is not distant when this state of general revival shall
be ours. It's a glorious thing when Presbyterians pray like that.

Now it's a great mistake to think of this as just a localized work
somewhere. It began actually in Canada under the work of a Methodist
ministry couple named Walter and Phoebe Palmer. There they were
ministering at summer camp meetings, and they stopped in Hamilton.

Their baggage was lost, and they had an unexpected stay there because of
lost baggage. And the ministers of that town arranged to have combined
meetings with them on very short notice, and very few people attended
the first meetings. Yet after that there arose such an awakening from
Hamilton and Canada that business leaders and common people all
repented, and that revival continued in Canada through 1860.

But then it came to the United States. First it came through the South
and swept through in remarkable patterns. There were pastors who were
pleading with their people and telling them to pray for a descent of the
Holy Spirit upon their congregation, and pastors who refused to go up in
the pulpit until they felt the quickening of the Holy Spirit.

And once they felt it, they went and God poured out His Spirit, and it
continued on in the remarkable New York City businessmen's prayer
meetings. You know the story of that, don't you? Of this man Jeremiah
Lamphere. He started a weekly noontime prayer meeting on Wednesday the
23rd of September 1857 on a church in Fulton Street.

He planned to have the prayer meeting last one hour, and he gave out
announcements to encourage other people to come. At the first meeting,
Lamphere stood alone in the room at noon until one other person came
about ten minutes late. Eventually, six people came to pray with him on
the first day.

The second week, there were twenty men. The third week, there were forty
praying men. And after that, they started praying every day at noon.

And in six months, ten thousand businessmen gathered for prayer each day
in New York. Now you know, one newspaper man in New York started
speaking against the revival. And so another newspaper man from a
competing newspaper, this was Horace Greeley, the famous man who said,
go west young man.

Horace Greeley, his newspaper in New York, they said, well if my
opponent, my competitor is against the revival, I'm going to be for it.
And so the newspaper man, very much like the Welsh Revival was promoted
by the secular press, he sent out reporters to go out and count how many
people there were in prayer meetings all over the city on that day. And
that's where they get the figure of ten thousand from a secular
newspaper account.

And it spread. It spread all over. It spread in the winter of 1858,
where the Baptists had so many candidates for baptism that they broke
ice in the rivers and they baptized believers in the cold water.

It spread to New England and to Boston, where Finney was preaching at
the New Park Street Church. Finney said there were too many converts to
keep count. In Newark, New Jersey, the population of 70,000 saw 2,785
conversions.

In Philadelphia, 3,000 men gathered daily for prayer. In Washington,
D.C., there were five daily prayer meetings and one of them was attended
by some 5,000 men. All over the country, you can get report after
report, all sorts of amazing, wonderful works of God.

And you could say that it was a miraculous time when the work of the
plowman bumped up against the work of the weaver. Now again, it's a
remarkable season. What does it mean to us today? Isn't that the
question? I mean, I love to talk about what God has done in the past,
don't you? But I see the great value of it in this.

You see, the value of the past is to give us faith for the present. We
believe that God can do it again. Listen, we know from the Bible that
he's done it in Bible times.

We know in history that he's done it through history. And I could go on
and on and talk about revival after revival, and I know that there's
brothers here who know more about the history of revival than certainly
I do. The phenomenon is real, but we bring it to our own day today, and
we say, God, why don't you do it today? Why? Is God a respecter of
persons? Did God like them more 150 years ago than he likes us today?
Did he say, well, you know, those are my special favorites.

I'll give them revival. But not these people who live in the 21st
century. Is God's arm weak now? Has God grown weaker over the years? No,
150 years ago he was stronger.

1904, wow, he was mighty then. Oh, but today, you know, maybe God's
tired. No, that's not it either, is it? Perhaps, perhaps God loved them
more.

No, no, we could not say that. A thousand times over, we could never say
that God loved them more. If I could call your attention to something,
you could keep your finger in the Amos 9 passage.

I want to point out a passage to you from Psalm 119, verse 126. Psalm
119, verse 126. It's a unique thing to be able to say verse 126, but you
can only say it talking about Psalm 119.

When we hear about God's great work in the past, I think this is the
sort of thing it should stir us to today. To say this, Psalm 119, verse
126. It is time for you to act, O Lord, for they have regarded your law
as void.

Is this not a prayer for us today? It's not a prayer for us to go to
God. And I have to say that as I was studying the Psalm, I was astounded
at the boldness of the Psalmist. The boldness to look up to heaven and
tell God when it is time for him to act.

But he says, God, it is time for you to act, O Lord. Why? For they have
regarded your law as void. Is it not true today? Can we not stand on
this same principle today? Is it not true that the mass people in our
Western culture regard the law of God as void? They don't give it a
second thought.

It's irrelevant to them. They may think it's nice for you and for your
spiritual delusions, but they regard it as void, as void for them. We
can take this verse to God.

This is the tragedy of it for many, far too many. It's true in the
church as well. The word of God is regarded as void.

So we look up to God and we say, it is time for you to act, O Lord. Now,
I find this verse very personally challenging because it's one thing for
me to look up to heaven and say, now, God, it's time for you to do
something. But is it even possible for me to pray this prayer without
looking at my own life, without realizing that to pray a prayer such as
this requires something of me? It requires me to look at my life and
say, God, in what way would you act upon me right now? This is the
crying need.

As you've heard again and again, I offer to say no new thing to you
right now, only to reinforce what my far more gifted brothers have said
time and time before into this conference. But it's a time for seeking
God. It's a time for putting away self.

It's a time for putting our focus upon Jesus Christ, about being
concerned with holiness and the Lord's work of sanctification in our
life and having a new commitment unto God. But you can't pray these
prayers for revival without having that concern for your own life. It's
never, O Lord, revive them.

It's, O God, revive me. Now, we also see from this verse in Amos chapter
9 that when God sends blessing and restoration, fruit also comes from
unexpected places. Did you see what it said in that verse? It said the
mountain shall drip with sweet wine and the hills shall flow with it.

Now, normally, grapes don't grow upon mountains. They grow in lower
places. You know, I live in Germany.

I live in Germany and one of the wonderful things to do as a tourist in
Germany is to drive through the Rhine River Valley or the Mosel River
Valley and you see these beautiful low land hills surrounding the
rivers. These valleys here formed by the rivers, they're very low, but
yet they form wonderful, wonderful ground for growing grapes, beautiful
vineyards. But here it says that the mountains shall drip with wine,
sweet wine I should say, and we should pray for such a season of
unexpected fruit.

Now, perhaps God wants to give you fruit in unexpected places, but
here's the problem. You're not expecting it there. Isn't that the very
nature of an unexpected place? If you were expecting it, it wouldn't be
an unexpected place.

And so let God show you unexpected places in your life and in what you
are allowed to do to serve Him where there might be fruit. Perhaps it's
an unexpected place. Perhaps it's an unexpected person.

Perhaps it's unexpected ministry. Aren't we astounded as we think of the
work of revival how often God uses the unexpected, the unexpected one.
This verse also shows us that when God sends blessing and restoration,
the fruit comes with great quality.

Amos looked forward to the day when the wine that came quickly and
unexpectedly places, from unexpected places would be what? Would be
sweet wine. Now, I'm not a wine connoisseur, but Amos used that phrase
to describe good and high quality fruit from the work. And that's what
we pray for.

You know, sometimes I think that the biggest problem in the church today
is not that we see no fruit from our labors, but it's often such low
quality fruit. It's fruit that does not remain. It's fruit that does not
abide.

And I wonder, I wonder if there's not a person here who might be
dangerously close to slipping into that very category. You wouldn't
think so, would you? You wouldn't think that a person who's
contemplating, maybe I just won't keep on going with Jesus Christ. Maybe
I'll go back to my old loves, my old amusements, my old habits.

You wouldn't think that a person like that would come to a revival
conference. But I know that God draws people under the strangest of
circumstances, does he not? And so if I'm speaking to you right now,
it's important for you to realize that your life needs to not just be
fruit unto the Lord, but quality fruit. Fruit that will be to his glory.

Fruit that will be, as Amos put it, it'll be sweet wine. Perhaps the way
that God wants to bless your life is to deepen your walk with him to
where it's no longer a superficial thing. I hate to say it, but I'll say
it straightforwardly to you.

Maybe your attendance at this very conference is a demonstration of
superficial Christianity. It may very well be. Are there not Christians
who live their life flitting about from conference to conference, from
thrill to thrill, from excitement to excitement, but never sink down
deep roots in the Lord Jesus Christ? Would it be strange for me to
assume that there might not be one or two of those among us right now?
And if it is, it's something to hear the tender heart of God speaking to
your heart right now and say, Lord, you've given me this word that has
seemed harsh and you've spoken to me throughout this conference, but
you've spoken it to me so that I would repent of it.

That I would bring forth a quality fruit unto you. Here's the great
truth of it. It's that God can make a massive impact upon the world with
a small group of quality people, right? And I don't mean quality in the
sense of being more justified before God, more righteous before his
throne.

I simply mean quality in the sense of more committed and sold out to
Jesus Christ. Simply in the sense of being those who would be more
willing to endure some of the shame, some of the mocking, some of the
difficult, some of the death to self that goes on in true ministry. You
see, when God sends blessing and restoration, the workers may sometimes
be anonymous.

If you look at verse 13 again, you see that you have a plowman, you have
a reaper, you have the man who treads the grapes, you have the guy who
sows the seeds, but are there any names given to us? None. They're
anonymous people. And this shows that even in times of great harvest,
the names may remain anonymous.

We think of the great names and well should we mark them and celebrate
them. We think of the men like Evan Roberts, the men like Sidney Evans,
the men of so many other names that we understand, but isn't it a
wonderful thing to cherish in our hearts the anonymous people who we
have no idea who they are by name that God has used mightily in works of
revival. And if there is anyone here, if there is anyone here at this
conference whose interest in revival has at its core a desire for self-
promotion, a desire for fame, a desire for notoriety, to be known as
someone who brought the revival, then I pray that with all charity, God
will root that out of you completely.

There'll be a thorough death to self. Yet at the same time, we notice
that in this season of great harvest, God may not raise up a high
profile preacher or prophet. He may do all the work through relatively
anonymous servants, yet nevertheless, we should be content to be such
servants and we should always be aware of wanting revival out of the
desire to make a name for ourselves.

You also see that when God sends revival, there's a division of labor.
The plowman still plowed, the reaper still reaped, the treader of grapes
still tread upon his grapes, and the guy who sowed seeds still sowed his
seed. You see, because the important thing is the work of the harvest in
general.

It's far greater than the work of any individual believer, but perhaps
God has given you a particular function in the body of Christ. Be happy
with it. Be content with it.

Don't long after someone else's gifts or callings. Do your work to the
best and in great faith and trust that God will bring the others who
need to do the work. May I say that the plowman is not in competition
with the reaper.

We refuse to compete. We refuse to measure ourselves against another.
Might I say as well that when God sends blessing and restoration, the
work is blessed, but it is still work.

To plow is work, to reap is work, to tread upon the grapes, to sow the
seed, it is still work. God just doesn't do it all for them. But under
God's blessing, the work is done with energy and joy.

The plowman just doesn't sit around and wait back. He's so filled with
energy. He's so filled with joy that he's pushing the reaper out of the
way so that he can get his job done.

And these seasons of unexpected blessing do not mean that God's people
sit on their hands and do nothing. There's still work for the plowman
and the reaper to do, but it's glorious, blessed work. I want to speak a
word to those of you who are involved in ministry in some way.

Don't you wait for the day when the ministry becomes easy. There's
always an element of sacrifice. There's always an element of being
poured out of death to self.

But there is a way of work that is blessed and there is a way of work
that is cursed. The great English preacher Charles Spurgeon described
this kind of blessed work. May I read you a quote from him? He said, I
meet with my brethren in the ministry who are able to preach day after
day, day after day, who are not half so tired as they were.

And I saw a brother minister this week who has been having meetings in
his church every day. And the people have been so earnest that they will
often keep him from 6 o'clock in the evening until 2 in the morning. Oh,
said one of their members, our minister will kill himself.

Not he, said I. That is the kind of work that will kill no man. It is
preaching to sleepy congregations that kills good ministers, but not
preaching to earnest people. So when I saw him, his eyes were sparkling
and I said to him, brother, you do not look like a man who is being
killed.

Killed, my brother, he said, while I am living twice as much as I did
before, I was never so happy, never so hardy, never so well. That's how
it is, isn't it? When God's blessing is upon the work, even though it is
taxing, even though it is work, there is a special joy in the midst of
it. Let me say that even when we are not in such blessed times, the work
of God deserves our energy and our effort.

We do not work for God only when it seems glorious. No, but also when it
seems more difficult. We are, to use the phrase that Paul spoke to
Timothy, right? We are ready in season and out of season.

Yet without apology, we look forward to and enjoy special seasons of
God's blessing. I remember speaking with a pastor friend some years ago,
and this was a man who has a wonderful heart for revival, and he came to
London and founded a church and did a wonderful work there, and he told
me about an occasion when he was praying for revival. He was very
excited about praying for revival, and he said that he felt the Lord
speak to him very strongly, saying, stop praying for revival.

Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that a strange thing for God to say? Stop
praying for revival. I can actually think of a few reasons why God would
want his people to stop praying for revival. Perhaps it would be exactly
the situation that our brother Alan spoke of before, right? Stop praying
for revival, and instead start thanking him because he's already sent
it, or he is sending it right now.

I can see where that would be God's word to people, would it not be? I
can see another reason why God would tell his people, stop praying for
revival, and that would be because they're praying out of a wrong heart.
They're praying out of a heart that says, Lord, revive them, and they
pray with a sense of spiritual superiority. Might I say that this is a
special danger for those among God's people who are interested in
revival.

The devil will tempt you, your flesh will tempt you to adopt a spirit, a
posture of spiritual superiority, and without saying the words, your
attitude in the body of Christ is something like this, Lord, make them
as spiritual as me. Listen, those kind of prayers, I believe, never
work, and even if you never vocalize that to God, he knows your heart if
that's within your heart. Might I say those kind of prayers never work,
even if they're true.

Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that it's true, that God has
brought true revival to your life, and how blessed it would be for your
church, or your group of Christians, whoever you're in fellowship with,
if they were brought up to the same place, let's say it's true that it
would be blessed for them to come up to your same place. At the same
time, those prayers never work, even if they are true, because they're
too focused upon your own spirituality. Don't you think it's wonderful
that Jesus never seemed to focus on his own spirituality? When he wanted
to teach the disciples a lesson about the greatest in the kingdom, he
says, okay, disciples, let me tell you about the greatest in the
kingdom.

Now, I would expect Jesus' next words to be, look at me now, because he
is the greatest in the kingdom, is he not? But what did he do? Without
focus on his own spirituality, he brought to them a child, and he said,
if you want to be great in the kingdom of God, become like this child.
Of course, Jesus is the greatest, he is the most childlike in that
appropriate spiritual sense, but he was not focused upon his own
spirituality, instead he was focused upon God his father. And this is
why I think such prayers are dangerous, and why they actually hinder the
work of the church.

I believe that's why God may tell a person to stop praying for revival.
But in the particular case of this man who told me this story, it wasn't
the fact that God had sent revival and he just needed to believe it. It
wasn't the fact that he was praying with the wrong heart.

No, God told him to stop praying for revival in another way. It was to
say, stop praying for revival in the sense of waiting for it and seeing
no value in the more ordinary work of the church. Friends, I know it's
frustrating.

I know to do the daily functions of the church, it's not easy. It's not
pleasant. And we long for God to send blessed seasons of revival when
the plowmen would overtake the weepers.

And we'll continue to do that. But in the meantime, we will continue to
plow and seed and plant and water and harvest as faithful servants, but
as we do, we pray and we hope for a time when the plowman overtakes the
weeper. I wish I were a prophet.

I wish I could stand before you with a prophetic word that came straight
from heaven to you that would tell you, I know that I know that God will
send revival and that he'll send it sooner than some of us think. I
can't speak it as a prophet, but I can speak it as a man with the
expectation of faith. It seems that God is stirring too many people.

And maybe, maybe it is true that there is yet a ways to go in the
preparation of his church until God sends this. These are things that
God alone knows. And if it is, what is the call for us? Let's get ready.

Let's make ourselves ready for revival. Let's be willing to do whatever
God would prompt us to do. I believe, I believe that God will send us a
time when the plowman will overtake the weeper.

Father, that is our prayer. Lord, without despising the ordinary work of
your church, without despising the ministry that happens through our
best efforts in a humble way, empowered by your spirit, without
despising any of that ordinary work, we plead to you for a great
outpouring of your spirit. We say, Lord, send such a season, when the
harvest is so great, when it comes with such rapidity, when it comes
with such size, when it comes with such quality, that all would know
that it is the hand of God among us.

Do it, Lord. And Father, I think ahead now to the last session that we
have this evening. I think, Lord, of all the wonderful words that have
been spoken so far from this pulpit.

And I leave it to you, Holy Spirit, to anoint our brother, David Lead.
Lord, anything lacking, any additional word of your spirit to this group
and to all who view it over the world, that you would speak it to him.
We rejoice in your word to us.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/PgP5VpqDY4o.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/david-guzik/ploughman-and-the-reaper/
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