========================================================================
  THE NATURE OF REVIVAL
  by Richard Owen Roberts
========================================================================

------------------------------------------------------------------------
DESCRIPTION
------------------------------------------------------------------------


------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENT
------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's our incredible privilege to come this morning, and again, because
of your indwelling presence, the power of your spirit called you,
Father. Thank you, in Christ Jesus, for adopting us. And Lord, we have
come today to worship you, to seek your face, and would ask especially
that you would anoint my brother Roberts and anoint our ears and our
hearts, that we might, Jesus, do as you said, have ears to hear and
hearts to understand and obey.

Father, I ask that you would reach out in your power and touch and put
your arms around each one here today. Lord, and there are others who may
be coming or making decisions about coming through the day. Would you
draw them, bring them? And Lord, we want to give you permission to say
whatever you want to say that we need to hear.

Lord, give us the courage to face that. Give our brother the freedom to
sense the direction that you want to go and to proclaim just that. Thank
you for all the fellowships represented here.

Lord, we know there's really only one, and that's your church. To you be
the glory, in Jesus' name, amen. Would you just take a moment before
you're seated and turn around and try to greet somebody you didn't come
with? Good morning, good to see all of you out today and trusting that
the Lord has prepared our hearts or will prepare our hearts as we spend
some time with him this morning.

First of all, I just want to say again to Pastor Mark Pearson and Pastor
Dwayne and Joyce and Scott and Jerry and the rest of you that I can't
remember everybody's name, thank you for helping to facilitate our
services here today and this whole week. You're part of this thing all
week long and I know that your prayers will go with us and go before us.
I don't know about you, but whenever I engage in spiritual activity and
that can look differently to different people, I guess maybe a better
way to put it is when I want to be obedient to the Lord and work with
his purposes.

Have you ever found that there's resistance to that? It comes in all
shapes and forms and and so your prayers for us this week would be
really appreciated and again just thank you for helping with us these
meetings. I want to mention to you again real quickly the forms that we
have back there for you for all the videos, tapes, books, things that we
have available from the meetings, prior meetings, and these meetings as
well. We have the tapes from yesterday on this table back here to my
right in the foyer.

It says the last message is preached so we do have copies of last
night's message as well as the morning message at Kingston Christian
Church. So they're over here and just ask anybody from the sanctuary
church that's wearing a tag to help you and they will do that for you.
There is a nursery provided this morning and tonight.

How about this afternoon? Do we have anything yet this afternoon? Okay.
If you want to bring your children please do that and then we want to
mention again that there is a church leadership meeting with Brother
Roberts after the two o'clock service which will end about four. We want
to give him an opportunity to eat and rest so we'll meet in the Munger
Chapel probably around four thirty quarter to five and spend some time
fellowshipping with him.

So if you're church leadership we invite you to join with us and spend
that time talking, sharing, learning from those experiences that the
Lord has given him. I want to read something to you as we get ready to
turn the service over to Brother Roberts. One of the things that I
appreciate about the Lord is that he knows what I have need of.

Isn't that a novel idea? The Lord knows what I have need of. Let me read
this to us as we prepare to hear the word of God. It seems a man who had
been drinking far too long was down on all fours under a lamppost one
night looking for his car keys.

As people passed by and saw him there some tried to help but invaded. At
last one of the searchers asked the man, are you sure you dropped them
here? We've looked and looked. Nah, said the man.

I dropped them up the street half a block but the light is better down
here. People tend to look for God the way this poor fellow looked for
his keys. They don't look where they lost him but where the light seems
good.

We lost God through disobedience and pride and rebellion. We turned away
from God in our hearts. We find God when in humility and an obedient
spirit we turn to God in our hearts.

As God told Israel, you will seek me and find me when you seek me with
all your heart. One of the reasons I enjoy meetings like this is that
God begins to show me what's in me that needs to be brought to him. I
don't want to go someplace where the light is better.

I want God to take me back to where I lost him and cause me to search my
heart and say God I want to come back to you. I'm so thankful that we
have the opportunity to hear the word of God and the privilege to
respond to the word of God. I'm going to blow the shofar and then we're
going to receive our speaker this morning and if at all possible may you
come back this afternoon and bring some more with you.

Come back this evening bring some more with you because as God touches
our hearts and we corporately confess and repent then God's going to do
a great work in our region. How many of you want to believe God for that
with me? Would you stand with me as we blow the shofar? I have found in
blowing the shofar sometimes people say oh you know that's just a bunch
of nonsense. If you have not heard the sound of repentance in your
spirit I trust that you will with me.

I have heard it in my spirit because you know what I sinned and I needed
to hear the sound of repentance deep in my spirit. It's not just a noise
but the sound that that went all the way through my soul into my spirit
into my very bones it caused me to say Lord I now know what it means to
repent. So as I blow the shofar may you with me may we humble ourselves
as the corporate body representing many fellowships in this area and ask
the Lord God can we see repentance come to our community to our area to
our region to our state to our country to our world.

The goodness of the Lord leads us to repentance. So as I blow the shofar
may you just close your eyes and pray with me that we'll see God do
these things. Father fetch our hearts that we might repent that we might
hear the word of God and we might say amen so be it to the word of God.

We thank you this morning for the privilege of being in your house touch
us Lord we ask in Jesus name and we all said amen. You may be seated. As
I said last night in introducing Brother Roberts I could spend probably
a half hour talking about all of the things he's done and has
accomplished but the Holy Spirit will introduce him to your hearts and
to your spirit.

I know that God has given him a burden for the people of God so with a
warm Pacific Northwest welcome let's introduce him let's invite Brother
Roberts. Brother Roberts would you come and minister let's give him a
hand clap this way. Brother Reuben has used the term repentance and of
course it is a term of great consequence much neglected.

I was in some meetings in the Omaha area some time ago when at the end
of the meetings three of the men were driving me to the airport and they
said to me do you realize that you have contradicted much of what we
believe. Well I said that certainly doesn't concern me but what in
particular are you agitated about? Well they said what you said about
repentance you don't seem to understand that repentance is a work and
we're not saved by works but by faith. Why we just completed a training
course in evangelism and in the training manual it said don't ever
mention the word repentance when you're witnessing to people because it
will only confuse them lead them to think there's something they must do
when in truth we're saved solely by faith in what Christ has done.

Now if there were just one or two people in the world that believed such
wickedness as that it would be a relief. We could shrug our shoulders
and pass it off and think nothing more of it. But the sad truth is that
a very substantial percentage of the church in America do not believe
that repentance has anything to do with salvation.

They say that has to do with the Christian life that it's an optional
matter that if one wants to become really serious and go deep into the
things of God then they have to consider repentance. But to be saved no
mention of repentance is appropriate. Do you think I made that up? I
wished I did.

It is so perfectly absurd that I would like to think that someone who
was just fooling, just kidding around, came up with ridiculous viewpoint
like that. But you see part of the problem is that there are many who
don't understand that there is an unbreakable unbreakable link between
repentance and faith. It is impossible to believe without repentance.

And it is absurd to repent and not believe. For repentance is turning
from and faith is turning toward. And the two must be kept together.

And no one can embrace Jesus Christ in faith and do so without having
repented because we are all going the wrong direction. And in repentance
we turn from the right direction. Not to some of you, but that is
primary doctrine in much of the church where such confusion reigns.

But let me begin this morning first by a word of instruction and then
picking up on what I just said. The word of instruction is simple. We
come from very different backgrounds.

I doubt that any of you have had a pilgrimage like my own. And some of
you are in denominational settings or in areas of theology, theological
thought that are very contradictory to my own. And I am bound to say
something that will be offensive to you or troubling to you.

I understand that. No, I'm not going to shy away from it. If I'm right
and you're wrong, I better tell you something.

But I say that with good humor. What I really want to say is, please do
not hesitate to interrupt and be polite about it. Give me opportunity to
finish a paragraph.

But if you have something you want to say by way of an objection or if
you feel it would be helpful to have some clarification or further
explanation, do feel the liberty to call for that. Now, I am getting
old, I admit that, but by the grace of God, not so old that I have
started to wander and lose my way. And if you interrupt kindly with a
raised hand and give me opportunity, as I said, to finish the thought
that I'm on, I think by the grace of God I'll be able to return to where
I was when you interrupted, and if it will help.

Now, don't interrupt. If you do have a mean spirit, you obviously need
revival, and that would be a good time to keep silent. But I'm quite
sincere.

If you have something that you feel you need further information on or
something you want to insert, feel that liberty. But now let me come
back to what I was saying about repentance and its mandatory nature.
Those of us who believe in the mandatory nature of repentance are in
danger of confining our thoughts concerning repentance to sin.

Now, did you hear what I said? We are in danger of confining our
thoughts to sin. Now, we surely must repent of sin, but to repent of sin
is not adequate. We are also to repent of dead works.

Let me draw your attention straightway this morning to the book of
Hebrews, chapter 6, admittedly a most difficult passage for many, but
look, if you will, please, at this passage and let me draw something
very specific pertaining to repentance to your attention. While you are
turning to Hebrews 6, may I take a moment to lay out an explanation of
the book of Hebrews that some of you may have missed. The book of
Hebrews is constructed in a very unique and special way.

It is like no other book in the Bible. You've learned that, no doubt, in
just reading it. But it is immensely helpful, I believe, to understand
the structure of the book of Hebrews.

For the book of Hebrews, in a most magnificent fashion, exalts the Lord
Jesus Christ, and does so through a series of contrasts. Christ is
contrasted with the law given by angels, with Moses and the whole Mosaic
covenant, with Abraham, with the priesthood, with the sacrificial
system, even with angels. I have not given those several words in proper
sequence in Hebrews, just suggesting that in every case, Christ is
contrasted with those matters and always shown to be infinitely above
everything he is contrasted with.

Now, that constitutes the central theological theme of Hebrews, this
repeated contrasting of Christ with something out of the old covenant
and demonstrating the superiority of Christ over everything that
preceded him. But at the same time that this series of contrast is being
presented, there is something else occurring. I feel as if what I'm
about to do is almost juvenile, and yet it may help some of you to catch
exactly the spirit of Hebrews.

Did you ever send a child to summer camp? I remember the first time we
sent our boy to summer camp, and I remember how it was when he returned
home. And he was telling us all about his experience at summer camp. Oh,
Dad, I tell you, the fishing was, oh my, what wonderful fishing and
swimming, oh, and the counselors, and he just was all over everywhere
prancing about, dancing as he was telling us about this wonderful summer
camp experience.

He would start on a line of thought and interrupt himself. He was so
excited about the whole matter. Now, there's a sense in which the book
of Hebrews is like that.

Here is this glorious presentation of doctrine, but the author of
Hebrews, we don't know his name. Some are opinionated on the matter, but
nobody really knows who wrote Hebrews. But he is under an immense burden
for the people to whom he writes.

So while he is lifting up and exalting Christ and elevating him above
all else, he is constantly, it seems, interrupting himself. And the
interruptions all take the form of warnings. Let me call your attention
with a bit of care here to this process that I have just described.

Notice in chapter 1 of Hebrews how Christ is contrasted with angels. But
when you come to chapter 2, before he has completed this contrast with
angels, we read in verse 1, for this reason we must pay closer attention
to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For if the word
spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and
disobedience received a just recompense, how shall we escape if we
neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through
the Lord, it was confirmed by those who heard, God also bearing witness
with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by
gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will, a very severe
warning in the opening part of the book.

Indeed, dear friends, those of you who preach, you ought by all means to
preach through Hebrews, because we are living at a time when the
doctrinal portion and the warning portions of Hebrews are urgently
needed. You see, among most of us, there is the absurd notion that it's
how you start that counts, that a good beginning in the Christian life
is everything. But that is a falsehood straight from hell.

It doesn't much matter how you start. It's how you finish that really
counts. And we have literally millions who appear to have made a good
beginning, who do not make a good ending.

But, you see, they have been led to think that having started well, all
is well. Now the point is quite clear. Hebrews is written to a body of
Jewish believers who have made a wonderful beginning.

But some of you who have been students of Hebrews are aware of the fact
that they came under tremendous persecution. We know many things that
literally were happening at the time. We know that while these professed
believers were attending the Christian meetings, their homes were being
ransacked systematically by the opponents of Christ.

We know that Nero would take these Christians in groups, and he staged
these huge and lavish garden parties. And we know that he would mount
them on crosses, and then cover them with inflammable materia, and set
them on fire. And these Christians served as lanterns at his garden
parties.

We know that many of these Jewish believers came from families that were
not believers. And the families were saying to them, You have done a
stupid thing. It was absurd for you to abandon the old covenant, the
covenant as they would have regarded it, and to have followed this Jesus
of Nazareth who is a proven heretic.

Now use your brain and come back to the truth before it's too late. Come
back, come back, come back. All kinds of things were happening that were
beckoning them back.

And had they gone back, what would they have gone back to? Hebrews makes
it plain that the old covenant was a shadow or a type of that which was
to come. Had they gone back, they would have gone back to nothing. But
because when Christ came, he was all, he was everything, he was the
fulfillment of all that the shadow or the type of the old law suggested.

So to leave everything and to go back to nothing would have been indeed
a tragedy of vast proportion, and yet they were being beckoned back. And
the indications are some were feeling the drawing power of that
beckoning and were being attracted backward instead of forward. So the
warnings, as I suggested, appearing over and over and over in Hebrews,
warning them, don't go back.

Now that's desperately needed in our day. And that basic understanding
that I've suggested, that it doesn't matter how you start, but how you
finish the Christian life. But I give you that as background to what
we're going to read now in the third warning, just for the sake of those
who have never marked these things out.

The first warning, as I pointed out a moment ago, is found in chapters
2, 1 to 4. The second warning begins at verse 7 of chapter 3. It is an
extended warning, and it runs on through verse 13 of chapter 4. I will
linger a moment over this second warning simply to point out these words
to you. In verse 6 of chapter 3, But Christ was faithful as a son over
his house, whose house we are. Now get this.

Whose house we are if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our
hope firm until the end. Did you get those words? We are of Christ's
household if, and let's be sure we understand what follows the word if,
if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the
end. And in that word confidence, hold fast our confidence, refers to
the bold, open, ongoing proclamation, Jesus Christ is Lord.

Now you see, there are many who have been taught that if we believe in
our hearts that Jesus Christ is Lord and confess with our mouths we're
saved. And what they are led to believe is an error in connection with
that biblical statement. They are led to believe that if once they
believe in their heart, and once they confess with their mouth, they're
saved.

But that's not true. The faith that saves is not faith that once gripped
us, but faith that grips us throughout the remainder of our lives. The
confession of the mouth is not a one-time, this is the baptismal pool
over here, sir.

It's not a one-time dip in the pool and an open confession by a one-time
dip. The confession has to begin somewhere, but it can't end in the
waters of baptism, or it can't end with the first testimony. There has
to be the ongoing, open, bold proclamation throughout life, Jesus Christ
is Lord.

Faith, in other words, doesn't happen in a point of time any more than
repentance happens in a point of time. Repentance and faith are ongoing,
and once they start, they must continue through life. And so, we are of
Christ's household, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence
steadfast unto the end.

Now, I don't want to get bogged down theologically and upset some of you
by being too particular, but we misuse the word saved. If we were to
speak correctly, those of us who truly are in a state of repentance and
faith, we would say we are being saved. But you see, there are many who
are referring to some experience in the past, where their present life
has nothing to do with that past experience.

And they say, well, I was saved, and they name some time when they had
this open confession and this moment of faith. But my point is that the
book of Hebrews is a book that is making it crystal clear it doesn't
matter how you start it, it's how you finish that counts. Now, in the
second warning, I've read verse 6, which is preliminary to the warning,
but if you will, glance down at verse 14.

For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of
our assurance firm until the end. So, the great focus of the second
warning is the mandatory nature of pressing on, pressing on, pressing on
unceasingly in the pursuit of Christ. I shall speak more of that, Lord
willing, later in the day.

But I began these brief words about Hebrews by telling you I wanted to
read something pertaining to repentance from chapter 6. And so now, if
you will, turn back to 6 and notice these words. Therefore, leaving the
elementary teaching about Christ. Now, I should tell you that the third
warning begins in chapter 5 at verse 11 and continues through verse 12
of chapter 6. So, in short, I'm plunging now into the middle of the
third warning when I read to you again from verse 1. Therefore, leaving
the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity,
not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works.

And of faith toward God, of instruction and washing, and laying on of
hands, and the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. He
singles out six foundational doctrines, but we concern ourselves now
with only one—repentance from dead works. How many of you men who preach
have preached upon repentance from dead works? Well, one, another, thank
God, several.

That's encouraging. I've been in places where it appears that nobody
ever even heard of the matter, let alone preached upon it. Now, what
would be an illustration of a dead work to be repented of? Yes,
absolutely, sister.

Something done in the energy of the flesh. For instance, a man could
lead in a public prayer meeting, and he could be praying in the energy
of the flesh. And he would need to repent of that dead work.

It's rather shocking, but important to realize that even praying
publicly can be nothing but a dead work. Others, if they were to repent
of dead works, would need to repent of their having accepted Christ.
Now, listen carefully, lest you go away saying, that poor Mr. Roberts is
to be pitied at a hair-take.

For many, when they say they have accepted Christ, all they've done is
to acknowledge historic facts concerning Christ to be true. Now, Christ
does not require my acceptance of him. My great burden ought to be his
acceptance of me.

It's vastly more important that he accept me than that I give mental
assent to him and accept the facts about him. There are some who
deliberately have accepted Christ, as they say, as their Savior, and yet
they have willfully rejected him as their Lord. They say in their
hearts, I will not have this man rule over me.

And yet they think they can be saved from hell by accepting him, even
though they reject his authority in their life. They need to repent of
that dead work. But it's not my purpose this morning to explore all of
the realms in which dead works affect the Church.

But even worship can be a dead work. The whole crowd can fill this
sanctuary and have a wonderful time, just go away glowing with joy and
excitement. Oh, we worship the Lord, and yet the whole crowd could have
missed completely the Lord and never even came near him.

There is that possibility, isn't there? Have you not yourself sometimes
participated in the singing of these great praise choruses, and yet your
own mind was somewhere vastly removed, not even thinking for a moment
about the Lord whose praises you were offering with your voice?
Repentance from dead works. So there has been, in our day, terrible
neglect of preaching on repentance from sin, and even more terrible
neglect of preaching on repentance from dead works. But then I would
add, dear friends, that a grievous error, or a grievous area, I meant to
say, where repentance is needed is repentance from false viewpoints,
from erroneous doctrine.

Much of what is being taught and proclaimed in our day as the truth of
the Bible is a lie. Last evening, some of you were here, I indicated
that back in the 1800s a viewpoint began to develop that said revival is
nothing other than the right use of the right means. And the author of
that grievously wrong viewpoint said that revival is something like
agriculture.

A farmer plows the field, and then he plants the seed, and he
cultivates, and then at the appropriate time he reaps the harvest. And
what he said was that's the nature of revival. Do we need a revival?
Then we ought to go about it like farmers.

We ought to plow up the field, and we ought to plant the seed, and we
ought to eliminate the weeds, and if there's a shortage of moisture, we
ought to add some moisture, and in time we'll have the great harvest of
revival. That's a lie. As I pointed out last night, revival comes from
the sovereign hand of God.

There is nothing any of us can do to force the hand of God. There are
things for us to do. We can repent.

We can pray. We can pour out our hearts longing to the Lord. But if
revival comes, it will come because he determines to send it, not
because we determine to have it.

Now, this may not seem consequential to you, but let me take a moment to
lay out a little history. You know it has been said of our day, of our
generation, that we have lost our way because we do not know history.
Let's go back to the earliest days in which our forefathers were
populating this continent.

I don't want to take advantage of you by exalting my own position. But I
happen to be—and you may want to forgive me for this—I happen to be a
Congregationalist. Now, that may not mean a thing to some of you, but to
others of you, you know that the people who settled in New England, the
Pilgrims, were Congregationalists.

They fled the old country because of the terrible persecution of
Christians and because they were not allowed to worship God according to
the dictates of their own hearts and conscience. And so they landed on
the shores of Massachusetts, and they planted the Plymouth Bay colony.
And in their hearts, they thought they were establishing a nation in
covenant relationship with God.

That was in their hearts. You read the early documents from the 1600s.
It's crystal clear.

They didn't consider themselves the equal of old Israel, but they felt
themselves called of God to establish a new Israel, a nation under God.
They sought the face of God. They practiced fasting and prayer.

Every time there was some registration of God's anger against them—a
fire, a flood, a great storm, the death of some young, prominent leader,
whatever the incident— every time they thought that God was registering
his anger against them, they called a solemn assembly, and they gathered
together to seek the face of God and to inquire what it was that had
offended God, and how they could put that sin away and enter again into
a harmonious relationship with the Lord. That began, as I implied, in
the 1600s, before the nation was actually formulated. I know that this
won't interest most of you, but it may interest a few.

If you were to study the books and the pamphlets published from the
earliest days of the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, you would
see that an amazing percentage of those books and pamphlets were devoted
to the theme of the solemn assembly. I don't know how many of you
understand the biblical concept of the solemn assembly, so I'm going to
take a moment to fill in just in case there are some who don't
understand this matter. I've spoken to you about repentance, and I've
specified three areas where repentance must occur in connection with
sin, in connection with dead works, and in connection with false
teaching.

But I need now to add this important matter. We must learn to see the
difference between personal repentance of personal sin and corporate
repentance of corporate sin. I know some of you have been exposed to
this matter.

A few of you, at least, have seen some of our publications that deal
with this subject. A little pamphlet that first appeared entitled The
Solemn Assembly spells this out hurriedly, but I think with accuracy. We
later published an entire book called Sanctify the Congregation, which
showed how to deal with corporate sin.

But now I'm asking each of you to quickly catch up in your thinking on
this matter. Dear friends, very basic to the understanding of revival is
the realization that in the Old Testament, revival is not ordinarily
directed toward individuals. It is a corporate matter.

Now, take the most familiar—or what I think is the most familiar—passage
on the subject of revival in all the Old Testament, 2 Chronicles 7.14.
Is that personal? Well, no one could read that with any care and say,
well, that's personal, that affects me. No, no. If my people, plural,
who are called by my name shall humble themselves, plural.

You go all the way through that passage, and you'll see that it is
clearly a passage dealing with the nation. Now, that is not to say that
there is no personal aspect to revival. It is only to say that to focus
on the personal and to miss the corporate is grievous indeed.

Now, dear friends, in our approaching the subject of revival today, and
we're going to give the day to, I hope, the most serious consideration
of it we can possibly give, I must say to you that it is urgent that we
all understand that first and foremost what we're speaking of is
corporate turning from sin to God. The corporate blessing of God coming
down upon his people. But you see, many, many churches have never faced
the problem of their corporate sins.

They have never practiced corporate repentance. Now, I don't speak
belittlingly or critically, but in many of our churches the way a
service is ended is by people coming to the altar and dealing with
personal sins. Well, there's certainly a time and a place for that.

But if that's as far as it ever goes, we have missed something of
tremendous consequence. If you study the judgments of God as they are
revealed in the scriptures, it is more than clear that the judgments of
God against the corporate body are vastly more numerous than the
judgments of God against individuals. So as we're approaching this theme
of revival, we've got to have it clear in our minds that we need revival
not merely as individuals, though I would expect every honest individual
heart here would gladly acknowledge their need of revival, but what we
need is corporate revival.

I don't think I'll offend the pastor by saying this church needs
revival, my church needs revival, your church needs revival, this state
needs revival, this nation needs revival, this world needs revival.
These matters we surely must understand and woe to us if we do not
understand these things. So I've suggested to you this necessity of
repentance that involves sin, that involves dead works, that involves
erroneous doctrine, and then I've broadened it to say that it must be
not merely personal, but it must be corporate.

And if it is not corporate, then it will be vastly less consequential
than what is so desperately needed. Now, the sense that I have is that
the understanding of revival that exists among us here, and certainly
that exists in the church across the land, is much too low. We've taken
a position that is inconsequential in comparison with the immensity of
the need.

And so for a few moments what I'd like to do, I've brought along some
notes to help me to do this in a systematic way, but for a few moments I
want to dwell on the subject of revival, and just very plainly, my hope,
my purpose, my yearning, my desire, my prayer, is that your sense of the
consequence of revival will grow immensely. I don't think you would be
here if you didn't have some sense of the need of revival. But I do
think it's possible to be here and to have less than an adequate sense
of the need.

Now, the degree to which we feel the need is definitely going to affect
our conduct, our prayer, and our promotion of this theme. So what I've
done, as I implied a moment ago, is to put in front of me a list of
terms that have been used in the church on this wonderful theme of
revival. Now, I don't need to tell those of you who love the Lord how
precious such words as grace, forgiveness, justification, redemption,
propitiation, blood atonement, mercy seat, throne of grace, and many
others like them are.

Don't you find those wonderful terms? Doesn't it delight your soul to
just feast upon the language of Scripture? We have a book that Reuben
has been offering for sale in this area entitled Salvation in Full
Color. And what it is is a group of twenty sermons that I selected—not
my sermons, but sermons that I selected from the period that we call the
Great Awakening period in America. From the 1740 period, essentially.

And they're sermons having to do with the great words of salvation. Now,
some of you wouldn't consider it a great word, but shame on you.
Election.

Some of you are troubled by that word. You just struggle with it. But
that's to your shame.

It's a biblical word. No man made it up. Repentance, which I've
stressed.

Faith. Adoption. Oh, what a lovely time we could have just thinking
together about the biblical theme of adoption.

How those of us who were aliens from God, strangers and outcasts, have
been adopted into the family of God and made joint heirs with Jesus
Christ. Well, that book, as I said, takes twenty of these great terms,
and there's a marvelous sermon on each of the terms by one of the great
giants of the faith. Well, readily we delight in such terms, those of us
who love the Lord.

But now what we're going to do is to think of the language of revival.
And I repeat what I said already. I'd just like to hope that your heart
will swell with anticipation, joy, and enthusiasm as you consider the
language that has been used pertaining to this wonderful subject of
revival.

The first word that I would call to your attention is the word
awakening. Now, strangely, in Psalm 44, verse 23, God is urged to
awaken. Now, that does seem strange, doesn't it? When we think of the
Lord, we think of one who neither slumbers nor sleeps.

But listen to these words from Psalm 44. Now, did you ever ask God to
wake up? It would hardly seem appropriate, would it? But you see, the
psalmist is facing a time like we're facing, and he's coming at the
issue from a different angle than we're going to come at it. But because
there is no sense of the presence of God in the society of that time,
because it seems as if God has withdrawn his manifest presence and is at
a great distance from them, the psalmist is urging God to awake, to
arise.

Now, understanding things the way that we do, we know it's not because
God is asleep that we're in this trouble as a nation. But the terrible
moral and spiritual decline that we have been experiencing over the last
two decades is not because God is tired, period, but because God is
tired of our sin. And therefore, he has withdrawn, not because he needs
rest, but because he cannot tolerate pride in man.

But this expression, awakening, some of you know that the term revival
and the term awakening have been used interchangeably. For instance,
during that period I spoke of a moment ago in this country, from 1730
approximately until 1770, that we designate as the Great Awakening. The
same movement of the Spirit of God was occurring in the United Kingdom,
that is, in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and there it was
described as the evangelical revival.

Here, the Great Awakening, there, the evangelical revival. Those two
terms have been used as if they were synonyms throughout the ages. And
yet, while there is some correctness in the use of the terms that way, I
want to point out, dear friends, that there is also a wonderful
distinction between the two terms.

And when we use these terms technically and carefully, we're speaking of
two separate things that are desperately needed. The church needs to be
revived, and the world needs to be awakened. Right now, the world
doesn't know that there is a holy God, a God of all majesty and power, a
God who always has his way, a God who knows nothing of defeat, a God who
is ever victorious.

The world doesn't know that. Right now, the world is under the
impression that they are winning, that theirs is the victorious side of
the conflict, that Christianity is dying, that it's a useless vestige
from the past, that it might have served some significance long ago, but
it is meaningless today. And you tell them about Christ, and they yawn
in your face.

You threaten them with the judgments of God, and they look at you as if
you were screwing. They don't think you know what you're talking about.
They are sure that there is no God anywhere big enough to threaten them.

But let an awakening come, and suddenly people who have no concept of
God at all, and no fear of God, will be alarmed to realize that they
have offended their own Creator, and that the one who made them for his
own glory is going to destroy them in an eternal fire, and that the sins
with which they have toyed and promoted and enjoyed are offensive in the
eyes of the Holy One, and that he is going to hold them responsible for
every single sin. Awakening. Oh, how we need it.

But dear friends, you must understand, no awakening is going to happen
in the world until first there is a revival in the Church. Because right
now, the viewpoint that the world holds, they hold tenaciously because
they have seen the failure of the Church. I believe I mentioned last
night that at the present time, the average person cannot believe in
Christ, because they cannot believe in those who call themselves
Christians.

They see the bickering among the Churches. Some of them work right next
to some loud-mouthed Christian who is always witnessing, but their life
is so hollow, so empty, so full of contradictions, that the man of the
world says, I regard Christianity with contempt. I would never ever in
all my life want to be like you.

There is nothing about you that's attractive. There's nothing about you
that I like. There's nothing about you that I would willingly duplicate.

Let a revival come to the Church. Let the Church be restored to the
purity of Christ. Let the holiness of God descend upon the Church and
then emanate out of the lives of the Church members, and the world will
begin to ask the question, what has made this incredible difference? But
the world won't ask that question until the Church has first been
revived.

I don't know if you feel a deep longing for an awakening in the world,
but let me put it to you from the standpoint of an old preacher, in this
work more than 50 years, traveling incessantly, pleading with people to
heed the word of the Lord. And time after time after time, seeing
congregations leave as they came, unaffected, unchanged. And all this
time preaching everywhere I could, every time possible, always seeking
to pour out my heart and the truth of the word of God, and watching our
world decline, decline, decline.

People often say to me, oh preacher, don't you get discouraged? Somebody
said to me since I've been here in this Seattle area, what good has all
your preaching done? And humanly speaking, how do I answer? Well,
appearance wise, I would say no good at all. Oh, an occasional person
here or there who seems to be out. But I tell you, I long for an
awakening.

I've often said to my father, oh father, if just once I could preach and
every word would be hung onto and every command obeyed, every orator
altered. Just once, Lord, before I pass from hence, just once, could I
see the response to the word of God that is always appropriate. You ever
feel that way, preacher? Longing, longing, longing for people to hear
the word of God.

I frequently read the passage in 1 Thessalonians 2 where Paul is
commending the Thessalonians and he says concerning them, I thank God
that you heard me not as a man, but you heard me as the voice of God.
And you gave evidence that you heard God speaking by your transformed
lives. Oh, how I long for such a day, a revival in the church and
awakening in the world.

Wouldn't you love, even if you're not a preacher, wouldn't you love to
live at a time when every word of God that you quoted to your family, to
your neighbors, to your friends, to those who work beside you in the
workplace, every word of God fell upon them like a bolt of lightning.
And they hated it. Oh, dear friends, these terms, revival and awakening,
are precious, precious terms.

Don't ever get involved in a season of excitement in the church in which
people holler and clap and stomp and bark and roar and roll and say,
that's revival. I don't know how some people can be excited by all that
noise and nonsense. I long for the word of God to come like a mighty
rushing river with the force and power of which I've spoken and for the
impact upon lives.

But let me leave the terms revival and awakening and draw some other
terms to your attention. The word fire. Now, no doubt this expression in
connection with revivals is derived from the experiences in the Old
Testament where the fire of God fell, and from the experience at
Pentecost when a cloven tongue like as a fire rested on each believer.

But oh, the need of fire in our day. Just take your own personal life.
Do you not frequently mourn before the throne of grace when you see the
chaff in your own life? Isn't it astonishing and doesn't it hurt the
heart to realize that even though we yearn to be holy and yearn to walk
in power and yearn for Christ's likeness, time after time after time
when we look in the mirror of God's word, we see that our lives are
grown up with weeds.

That much of our strength is drained by stuff. My wife and I, out of
necessity, had to put our home up for sale six years ago. And it's a
lovely home.

When we bought it we thought we would die there, but we had to sell it.
And it was for sale for six years. And finally it sold last Tuesday.

And we had some advance warning. I mean, we had a contract and we hoped
it was going to go through. So we had to begin to get rid of stuff.

I'm still in bewilderment at the realization of how much stuff there
was. I began, when the contract was submitted six months ago, moving my
books. Seventy-five thousand of them, mostly dragged up from the lower
level, carried by this poor old man up a flight of stairs.

Every day I took a van load down to our office building. Then over the
last two months I had to deal with my wife's accumulation. I tell you it
was incredible.

I won't bore you with the details. But things were pulled out of closets
and storage areas where I said, What is this? I didn't have any notion
we owned something like that. What will we do with it? What do we want
it for? How did we ever get it? What made us keep it? Stop! Here we are,
committed Christians, earnestly desiring to move on with Christ, but our
lives are filled with stuff.

And even despite this horrendous experience, I'm not sure we're cured of
the accumulation of stuff. And every item that you save, you've got to
do something with. You've got to find some place to stick it.

And unless you bury it, you've got to dust it. And you've got to move it
around and arrange it so it looks decently. You don't want to be
stumbling over the stuff.

And so you surround it with furniture and more stuff. Revival is fire.
Oh, how blessed it would be to have the fire of God come down and
consume the stuff of our lives.

And it's not just our personal lives. But much of what goes on in the
church is about equal in value to the stuff that we put in our closets
and storage areas. It would be a wonderful blessing if it was just
consumed with the fire of God.

Now, the world looks at us and they say, Well, I don't think you're any
different from us. And every once in a while we have a good look at
ourselves and we have to ask, Where am I different from the world? I'm
the only man I know that lived in a house that occupied 10,000 square
feet. And when I'm talking about stuff, I'm not talking about a trunk
load.

10,000 square feet filled with stuff. Oh, at one time it was all
justifiable. Our offices were there.

Employees were working out of our home. We needed every inch of that
space. But when we no longer needed it, we still had it, and then we
filled it with, well, I don't need to use the word again, the fire of
God.

And think about those sins that have plagued you going way back. Secret
sins. Sins that nobody else knows anything about.

Sins that you have groaned over, wept over, sought to repent of, longed
for deliverance, even knew some measure of divine power over, and then
sooner or later their ugly head popped up again. And you said, oh no,
that sin is still a besetting sin. The fire of God consuming the
besetting sin.

Oh, dear friends, when you're thinking about revival, don't think about
a little flurry of excitement. Don't think about an intense period that
lasts a few days or weeks. Think about the fire from heaven.

That leads me to draw a contrast that I think is very urgent. Now, I
don't pretend that I'm the world's expert on revival, but I do admit I'm
the only man I know that spent his entire life on this subject. And I do
know I have the largest library in the world on the subject, so I'm
centered, or word-orientated.

Now look, we know that we're called to pray for revival. What kind of
revival have you been praying for? Just anything that comes? Or have you
been specific? If there is a choice, is there not wisdom in choosing
wisely? If you have the right to aim a prayer instead of just scattering
prayers, is there not wisdom in aiming the prayer toward the highest and
the best? Now, perhaps you're not familiar with the terms I've used, and
wouldn't gain enough from my having said that to know what to do, so let
me spell out for you the difference between these two. An experience-
centered revival is a revival in which the focus is upon experiences,
whereas a word-centered revival is a revival in which the focus is upon
the Word of God.

Now, let me just ask you right now, let's pretend this is just a simple
classroom and we're all required to participate. Which of those two is
the best, the highest, the most needed? The word-centered revival. Now,
don't misunderstand.

I'm not saying that one is mutually exclusive of the other. I'm not
suggesting to you that when you have an experience-centered revival,
there is nothing of the Word of God, any more than I'm suggesting when
you have a word-centered revival, there's nothing of experience. I've
used the term orientated, and I've used the term centered.

I'm saying one has as its focus experience, and one has as its focus the
Word of God. Now, my deep conviction is that we are languishing and
failing, and the world is rushing pell-mell to hell because of the
grievous neglect of the Word of God in the churches. I listen to all the
preaching I can, and I groan regularly as I listen to the sermons which
seem to me to bob around on the surface, by and large, and they rarely
ever get to the real issues of the Word of God.

Now, to help you to think with me about these matters, I'm going to put
a question to you. Can you illustrate from history a word-centered
revival? A word-centered revival. Can you illustrate from history—in
other words, can you name a revival that was word-centered? All right,
I'm hearing two things.

The Welch Revival and Whitefield, and Whitefield would be during the
period I've already described as the Great Awakening or the Evangelical
Revival. Now, there are two suggestions. Which of them is correct, or
are both of them correct? Well, I don't want to assume that you know
things you don't, nor do I want to belittle what you do know, but let me
give you some help here.

Yes, Wesley Whitfield. All right, now let's start with this brother
here. We all are at least familiar with the term the Protestant
Reformation.

That happened, of course, in the 1500s or the 16th century. And what did
that consist of? Well, essentially, it—go ahead. John Wycliffe, in about
the 1300s, put the Bible in common language and started it.

And the thesis that Luther nailed on the Catholic Church of things he
felt needed to be returned to their original form started a lot of
translations into the language of the people that everybody would know
in the Bible and be able to worship. I'm not sure you all heard what he
said, but he mentioned Wycliffe and his translation of the Bible into
the common language. That sort of was a forerunner to this great work.

And then Luther, he mentioned, packed up his 95 thesis on the door of
the Wittenberg Church, and a whole stream of endeavors followed,
including translations of the Scriptures into the languages of the
people. Now, that movement was truly a word-centered revival. The thing
that carried that movement was the great preaching of a whole host of
men.

I mean, there's a large number. There may be a relative few names that
some of us are familiar with, but there were vastly more men. For
instance, in the early days of that movement, Luther himself was
obviously converted to Christ.

He then was used of the Holy Spirit at Wittenberg University, and the
entire theological faculty of Wittenberg University was touched by the
life and ministry of Luther, and they came to faith in Christ. They then
proceeded to train somewhere between 5,000 and 7,000 young men who
became flaming evangelists, men who preached the Word of God. Shortly
after the beginnings of the movement in Germany with Luther, John Calvin
was also greatly touched by the Holy Spirit, and he began training young
men in Geneva, and he trained somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000.

Now, take the lower number in each case, 5 to 7 and 3 to 5. You've got
8,000 flaming evangelists well trained in the Word of God unleashed on
Europe over a relatively short span of time. Imagine what would happen
in America if a few of the godly men in America were able to train 8,000
men. My, would I love to have the input into the lives of 8,000 men and
unleash them on the land in one short period of time.

A marvelous example of a Word-centered revival. Now, this sister
mentioned Wesley and Whitefield. Now, that's a bit later.

The movement under Luther, some of you recall, began in a public fashion
in 1517. The movement under Whitefield began at his conversion in the
1730s, so 200 years later. A few years later, Wesley was converted and
became a part of that work of grace.

But I could give you a long list of the names of men that I know who
were powerful preachers in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland to a
lesser extent, and the United States. Dozens and hundreds of men who
were great preachers of the Word of God. They didn't toy with such
subjects as comfort.

They didn't feel burdened to encourage people. Now, most of our
preachers today spend a high percentage of their time encouraging people
and making them comfortable. Well, the sad truth is the average
Christian is so comfortable they're sound asleep.

And to pile more comfort upon them is a grievous affront against God.
These men preached the great doctrines of Scripture. When I spoke of
repentance, I said repentance from sin, repentance from dead works, and
repentance from false teaching.

These men preached great, powerful sermons on regeneration and on
justification and on the power of the Holy Spirit in conviction and
conversion, the great themes of Scripture. But now, those are
illustrations of a word-centered revival. How about an experience-
centered revival? Well, this brother over here, I think it was you, and
I don't want to embarrass you, but if you were submitting the Welch
revival as an example of a word-centered revival, I've got to correct
you, brother, right now.

I hope you'll take it in the warm spirit I give it. In Wales, God begun
a great work in the 1500s. Wales is a little, tiny nation on the far
side of England called a principality with its own language and its own
customs, very different from the English, but a very pagan nation.

And then in the 1500s, God began to stir and work. There were men like
Walter Craddock and Babasur Powell who were brought to faith in Christ.
Babasur Powell wrote the most interesting book.

See if you can tell me its contents by its title. A Bird in His Cage
Chirping. Any notion of what the book might have contained? It was his
prison epistle.

As John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress while in prison, and Paul the
Apostle wrote glorious books while in prison, Babasur Powell was in
prison for openly preaching Christ on street corners and everywhere he
could draw crowds, and he wrote his Bird in the Cage Chirping, his
witness of the testimony of Jesus Christ while in prison for the faith.
But that was the beginning of a movement that marched onward year after
year after year. Some have estimated 60 or 70, 90 revivals affecting the
Principality of Wales between the 1500s and the end of the last century.

Then in 1904, the last of this wonderful series of revivals occurred,
touching 1904 and 1905. But it was an experience-centered revival. Now,
did you hear what I said a moment ago? It was the last of a long series.

Do you think we need now the last of a series? Wouldn't you agree,
brother, we need the first of a series, not the last. Now, we're not
predicting the end times. We don't know when our Lord is going to
return.

We're ready to bow to him as soon as he arrives. He may come tonight. It
may be a thousand years away.

And in that we don't know when he's coming, we must think of the little
ones. Do you think of the little ones? While I'm an old man, I think of
the little ones just about every day. We moved, as I said, from our big
house, and we're crammed now into a tiny little apartment.

And we have the joy of living where our son and his family and our
daughter all live. And every day the little ones are around. When I'm
home, they're hanging onto my leg, they're sitting on my lap, they're
breathing their sweet nothings in my ears.

The little ones. And for the sake of the little ones, I have to carry an
increasing burden for revival. Can I contendedly live in a day of moral
and spiritual decline when the little ones are clinging to my knee? Can
I say, Oh, who cares what happens when the little ones are under feet?
Must my heart not be stirred with anguish and concern? Oh God, for the
sake of the little ones, begin another great series of revivals.

But Lord, please, don't let it be an experience-centered revival. Let it
be a word-centered revival. You say, Mr. Roberts, I'm not clear why you
would make that distinction.

Let me tell you. Experience-centered revivals are short-lived. Some of
you may be aware of the fact that somewhere between three and four years
ago, there was a stirring of the Holy Spirit that began at Howard Payne
University down in Texas.

It was a very legitimate work of God. University students were greatly
moved, and many of them rushed to the microphone and confessed
unbelievably wicked sins. I was immediately alert and aware of that
movement, and the week that it was happening, I was in touch with this
man who God was using in that situation, and we conversed about it.

The next week, another man from Texas called, and he said to Mr.
Roberts, Have you heard any news from Fort Worth today? No, I said, Not
yet. He said, It's Southwestern. That's the largest theological seminar
in the world, between three and four thousand students.

He said, At Southwestern, chapel is still going on. It began at ten. It
was then between three and four in the afternoon.

Deep stirring of the Holy Spirit. I said, Thank you for calling. I'm
glad for good news.

My son, who works with me, was standing nearby, and when I hung the
phone up, he said, Dad, what was that? I said, Good news from Texas.
Stirrings of the Spirit at Southwestern Seminary. He said, Dad, give me
the phone.

So I handed the phone across the table to him, and immediately he rang
the college, which is next to our office, Wheaton College. He got one of
the professors, and he said, Professor, do you know what's happening at
Southwestern today? No, I haven't heard anything, said the professor.
Tell me.

So my son passed on the news, and the professor said, We must get some
of those students from Texas to come to Wheaton College. And my son
said, Dad, I'll be glad to work with you on that. So in a week or two,
some students from Texas came up to Wheaton, Illinois, and the students
meet regularly on Sunday night at about 8.30 after the churches have had
their evening service in what they call the World Christian Fellowship.

And so these students from Texas spoke at Wheaton College on Sunday
night. And that meeting, if my memory is correct, went on until four in
the morning. Deep, deep conviction, powerful stirring.

The administration allowed them to meet again the next night after 9
o'clock. And a lot of big, great big trash bags were brought, and the
students confessed to drug addiction and pornography addiction and
immoral deeds and all kinds of things. And for four or five days, they
met every night in a bigger auditorium as the week progressed, and a
powerful, powerful sense of conviction touched hundreds and hundreds of
the students.

But then it was over. It was a word, or excuse me, an experience-
orientated revival. It didn't last.

It had good effect. It was needed. It was wonderful.

We thank God for it. But I'll tell you, plainly, Wheaton College needs a
word-centered revival. Within a few weeks of that movement being over,
all the same sins began to appear again.

And sadly, while it touched students, it didn't touch faculty. Now,
those of you who know how to use your brain know that when you have a
university revival and it touches only students, you have to have one
every four years. But if it touches faculty, then it won't be needed so
frequently.

But now, here's my point in telling you this precious account. No one on
the faculty—I was one time on the faculty, but I was not at this time,
nor am I now— no one saw the necessity of preaching. And so there was no
preaching done during that season of grace.

Later—now listen carefully—later, there were students who had gone to
the microphone and confessed horrendous sins, who later wrote articles
condemning the movement, saying they had been forward, they had
confessed, but the revival was a fraud because they were right back when
they wrote in the sins that they had confessed. Now, dear friends, you
see—now listen— there is a great difference between confession and
repentance, but the students weren't told that. It's not fair to expect
students to know that.

Somebody, you see, should have grasped that golden opportunity and
should have insisted on profound preaching of the Word of God. So I want
you to realize that an experience-orientated revival will be short-
lived, it will have many who are touched who fall away, and it will not
result in major social renovations. Now, we live at a time when we
already have, without revival, all kinds of people who made a good
beginning, as I stated from Hebrews, but are nowhere now.

We don't want to add to that number who fall away. We are already at a
time when there's a terrible paucity of the preaching of the Word of
God. We can't afford any more neglect of the Word of God, and we are
living at a time when there are deep social problems that need to be
corrected and will be corrected by Christians who are thoroughly
informed biblically and utterly committed to changing the world by the
power of the cross of Christ.

As long as you're led to pray for a revival, pray for a revival that is
centered on the Word of God. And because some of you are leaders and, by
God's grace, placed in positions of authority, I urge you, don't step
aside when revival comes. Now, let me tell you what happened in Wales.

There was this stirring. It had actually begun in a quiet way in
numerous places. Then a young man—we bear the same name, but we're not
related.

My family came from Wales, but Wales is a divided nation. There are two
sections, north and south, and there's no connection, essentially,
between the two. My family came from north Wales.

The man of whom I speak, Evan Roberts, came from south Wales. Evan
Roberts was a student in a Bible school. He felt greatly burdened to go
home, and he went home and asked his pastor if he could lead a special
meeting.

And God just quickened the occasion, and a great revival began in Wachau
in south Wales. But Evan wasn't a preacher. He didn't know how.

He didn't have an adequate sense of the Word of God to preach. And so
the movement focused on experience. There were wonderful converts, many
marvelously revived and others awakened and converted.

But the revival of Wales in 1945—now listen carefully— it was only an
interruption of a downward slide. Do we need an interruption? We have
been sliding downhill steadily for more than two decades. How much help
would there be in interrupting that downward slide for six months? And
then the slide continued.

Oh, dear friend, surely your heart tells you we need a radical
turnaround, and things need to move up, Godward, instead of down,
hellward. And it's the preaching of the Word of God. So if you're in a
position of leadership and the Spirit of God begins to stir, don't you
dare focus on experience.

This is what's happened in Toronto and Pensacola. There is some
preaching, but they are not what would be called word-centered
movements. They're experience-centered movements.

There's some validity. I would never cheapen the word revival to define
what's happening in those places and say that's revival. That's not what
I'm praying for.

It's not what I know our nation needs. Now, as I said earlier, don't
misunderstand. I'm not saying to you that when there's great preaching
of the Word of God, there is no experience.

Why, indeed, the most marvelous experiences of all come directly through
the Word of God, the profound and the lasting experience. Pastor, did
you ever have the joy of preaching, and as you were preaching, you saw
someone come alive during the preaching? This dear man shakes his head,
and this brother shakes his head. Those of us who preach, and who at
least occasionally know something of the anointing of the Holy Spirit
upon our preaching, we watch people come alive.

We see sweeping over their faces a radical alteration. They are never,
ever the same again when they have been quickened by the Spirit and
brought to life in Christ Jesus. The preaching of the Word, I'm saying
to you, produces the most profound experiences.

But apart from the preaching of the Word, one can have very exciting
experiences which may be valid or may not. So I am not urging the
abandonment of interest in experience, but the focus upon the Word of
God. Well, I have not lost track of the direction I began in.

I told you that we have to think of the terms revival and awakening and
fire, and then I said now is the appropriate time for me to insert this
distinction between the Word-centered and the experience-centered
revival. But I come back now to glance at my notes, and I mentioned to
you that another term that we use in connection with revival is the term
fullness. Fullness.

And oh, what a precious term. I wonder how many of you could, if I gave
opportunity, and I'm not going to do so, leap to your feet and say, I am
enjoying the continual fullness of the Lord. Oh, I would like to think
that every one of us knows something of fullness and have had blessed
experiences in which we found ourselves full.

But let me tell you how I see the church scene today, and I can't see
that there's any difference between Lutherans and Baptists and
Pentecostals or various stripes and Episcopalians and Methodists and
Presbyterians and the rest. I don't see any difference. We all seem to
be suffering in the same way.

It sounds to me as I listen to sermons, and from time to time I even
attend Sunday school classes, and it sounds to me like a good bit of
what's being done is someone who is serving the Lord from a nearly empty
vessel. And you listen to the sermon, and this is how it feels to me.
This poor man who's about to preach has been down in the bottom of the
vessel of his life with a lousy little sponge.

He's working among the dregs of the cup, as we describe it. He's down
there with this sponge, trying to get a little something out of the
bottom of the nearly empty life. And then he shows up in the pulpit with
that lousy little sponge, and he wrings that sponge, and he twists it,
and he bends it, and he squashes it, and he wrings it, and finally out
comes a sour little drop.

And you go away worse than usual, because there's nothing refreshing in
the dregs of the cup. But the word fullness is used in connection with
revival. And oh, how blessed it is to catch the significance of this.

In seasons of revival, God opens the portals of heaven, and he begins to
pour his blessings down. Here's a brother with a large cup. And the
portals open just above his head, and the Lord starts to pour, and pour,
and pour.

And the brother howls out, I'm full now, Lord! But the windows of heaven
are still open, and the pouring is still going on, and on, and on. And
soon this dear brother is spilling in every direction. The fresh
blessings from heaven filled to overflowing.

My dear friends, there is desperate need of that kind of fullness.
Filled to overflowing. And you can't conceive of a genuine revival where
there is not that overflow of the already filled cup.

Now, the world is never spilled upon out of our lives by anything other
than our lives contain. If somebody knocks up against you, and you spill
out of the cup of your life, you can only spill its contents. And
suppose there's bitterness in the cup.

Suppose you've got some gripe against God himself, or some grievance
with someone in the church. That's what you're going to spill. But oh,
to be filled with overflowing, with the fresh graces of Christ.

And then every time we're jostled or knocked, or poked and spilled, it's
the blessings from heaven that we spill. Another term, I've got to look
at my watch. Oh, here it is, twelve o'clock.

I'll finish this this afternoon, but let me give you one more word. The
word glory. Glory.

You see, this is a word regularly used pertaining to revival. Glory. I
don't know whether you've got all of our books out on your tables,
brother, but we have put out a book called Glory Filled the Land.

We have another book entitled Scotland Saw His Glory. And all of you can
remember that occasion when Moses had been up on the mountain with God
and the people, had complained to Aaron, and he had built the golden
calf, and they had sinned wickedly against our Father. And how when
Moses saw what they had done, he smashed those tables of stone, and God
said, Now Moses, you get busy, and you lead this people to the place
where I have sent you.

I will not go with you. I will send an angel. And Moses stubbornly said,
Lord, if you don't go with us, we're not going anywhere.

And the Lord said, Moses, I like the way you do things. All right, I
won't send an angel. I'll go with you again myself.

And then, full of courage, Moses says to the Lord, Lord, show me your
glory. So the Lord says, Come on back to the mountain. Moses, stand
there in the cleft of the rock.

Let me cover you with my hand, and let me parade all my goodness before
you. Moses asked for glory, and God showed him his goodness. A season of
revival is a time when the goodness of God is manifested in the land,
and the goodness of God is his glory.

Oh, all around us are people that know nothing of the glory of God. You
know that precious psalm that says, The nearness of God is my good. My
own personal experience throughout life has been exactly as the psalmist
described it.

Those precious seasons when God has drawn near to me, those are the best
days of my life. We run the danger of thinking more lowly, of accepting
inconsequential things in place of what we really need. We can, with one
accord, express to you the conviction that we desperately need revival.

We long for awakening, for fire, for fullness, for glory. And we believe
that while there are indeed a series of arguments that we could raise
before you in keeping with your word through Isaiah, come now, let us
reason together, saith the Lord. We could give you a series of reasons
why revival is so urgently needed and so greatly longed for.

And surely we would include the heathen in our reasoning. And then, for
the sake of the little ones, we would say, Oh God, come in great glory.
But above all the reasons for pleading with you to send revival, none
rises so highly or takes on such gigantic proportions as the glory of
your own name.

For we are living amongst a pagan people who, if they use your name at
all, do so with contempt and even loathing. Every day your glorious name
is trampled in the muck and you're treated with disdain. And we know of
nothing that would bring you greater glory than to pour out your spirit
upon the land in these days so that our Lord Jesus Christ might be
elevated before all, so that every knee would indeed bow and every
tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

For the sake of thy glory, wilt thou not revive us again? Now as we
break for lunch, may it be with a spirit of sobriety and yearning and
help us to come again this afternoon to be stirred and moved in the
direction that will ultimately bring you the greatest glory through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. As Brother Roberts was ministering,
something that came to me years ago, I had a pastor who we used to drive
around and he would just preach to me, and it created a hunger in me.

I just wanted to be with him all the time. It just continually stirred
me up inside. Today, as we've heard this message, has it created a
hunger in you, a desire for the things of God? I want you to, as we
dismiss here, we're going to receive an offering for the expenses of the
meetings and this entire week, as Brother Roberts has come from Wheaton,
there's expenses, there's the airfare, there's all the things that
accommodate this type of meeting.

If you brothers would come, we're going to ask you to give, to help us
in paying for this entire week of meetings, the different churches, the
different expenses that go along with doing this type of service. Let's
just pray. You give.

The Lord knows how to speak to us, doesn't he? As the Lord touches your
heart, I'm not going to twist any arms or take out a gun and point it at
you. You just give as the Lord tells you this morning. These offerings
during the day go to help pay for the expenses of the week with Brother
Roberts.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for hunger. Thank you for the word of God.

Lord, we ask you to bless this offering. We ask you, Lord, to use it for
your glory and for your honor. We thank you for the words that we have
heard.

We thank you, Lord, for the hearts that are here, and we thank you for
those that will be back this afternoon. May you take this time, Lord,
and cause us to grow for your glory and your honor. In Jesus' name,
amen.

========================================================================
Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/nBu0FI3rBAI.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/richard-owen-roberts/the-nature-of-revival/
========================================================================