======================================================================== REND THE HEAVENS AND COME DOWN by Wesley Duewel ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of prevailing in prayer for revival, sharing personal stories of answered prayers and the impact of revival in different countries. It highlights the power of prayer, the need for spiritual awakening, and the transformative effects of God's revival fire. The speaker recounts experiences of revival in Wales, Korea, and personal missionary work in India, underscoring the significance of carrying prayer burdens and seeking God's intervention. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the importance of prevailing in prayer for revival, sharing personal stories of answered prayers and the impact of revival in different countries. It highlights the power of prayer, the need for spiritual awakening, and the transformative effects of God's revival fire. The speaker recounts experiences of revival in Wales, Korea, and personal missionary work in India, underscoring the significance of carrying prayer burdens and seeking God's intervention. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ God called me to India when I was five years of age, playing in a sandbox outside the church where my father was a pastor. And I looked up and I ran in the house to my mommy. I said, Mommy, Mommy, Jesus just told me that when I get big, he wants me to go to India to tell people about him. And I said, Mommy, I want you to go along with me. What else would a five-year-old boy do? But you know, I never lost that sense of call, never lost that sense of call. When I was in my last year of grade school, the teacher passed out a slip of paper. We were all to write down on the piece of paper what our life work was going to be. Of course, I knew, missionary, missionary. But I was a little farther away from the Lord for a couple of years there, and I was embarrassed. And I thought, oh, what can I put down? I didn't want to tell them I'm going to be a missionary. That winter, I had chopped wood for a widow that lived about a block and a half from where we lived. So I wrote down, my life's work, I hope, is to chop wood for poor widows. The next year, the first year in high school, would you believe it? The teacher passed out a slip of paper. We were all to write on that paper what we expected to do. Oh, I didn't want to put chop wood for poor widows again. But I couldn't think of the name of any occupation. The only time in my life when I copied, I lifted up a bit of the seat and looked over the shoulder of the boy ahead of me, and he put down aviator. Oh, I thought, that's the name of an occupation. So I wrote down on my slip of paper, aviator. When I walked out of the room, the teacher looked up at me. So you're going to be an aviator, are you? I was so ashamed, I could have just wilted in my boots, as they say. I knew I was not going to be an aviator, because I always knew that I was called of God to be a missionary. So God finally gave that privilege, and I praised his name for 25 years in India, after which I was called back to the States to help at the headquarters in Greenwood, Indiana, just south of Indianapolis. To my surprise, after two years, they made me the president of our missionary society. I spent some years in that. And since that time, I just stay around, but I keep busy all the time. So I'm glad to be with you, but all of my life, revival has been, from my childhood on, I've loved to read books on revival, stories of revival, I hungered and prayed for a revival. I have not seen major revivals in person, but it's been my privilege, whenever I could, to associate with them. So in Britain, it's been my joy to visit the area where the Welsh revival began. I knew three of the first five converts of the revival in Wales, which leaped, the revival fire leaped across the world from place to place until there were more than five million people, one to Christ, in the waves that followed the Welsh revival in different countries around the world. It was also my joy to get to know another dear friend, used of God in the revival in the Hebrides, and that's, I guess, the most recent, famous time of revival that has been present. I got to know my dear brother in the Lord, and he came to America and came straight to our house for the first time, he came to the States, and I got to know about the revival in the Hebrides and examine the places around there. So revival is next to my heart, and I'm still praying and believing for a mighty revival to come to our country. God knows we need revival. May the Lord help me as I speak on revival today and tomorrow. About 70 years ago, I heard a godly evangelist give a message under the anointing of the Holy Spirit on revival. One illustration he gave I've never forgotten. In those years, the National Park Service here in the United States had a certain ritual which they followed every night in Yosemite National Park. Each night during the main tourist season, there would be one park ranger down below Yosemite with the campers and the visitors to the national park that were there, and there would be one park ranger up on the summit of Yosemite. And when everything was all ready, the park ranger below would call out, Let the fire fall! And the log fire, which they had burning at the top of Yosemite, the logs would be kicked over and they would come tumbling down Yosemite to the bottom. That's a human, poor illustration of Holy Spirit revival fire, but the idea has long appealed to me. And my heart cries out to God, Oh God, let the fire fall! We need revival! God send us revival! Isaiah said, Isaiah 64, one and two, Lord, oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you, as when fire sets twigs ablaze, come down to make your name known and cause the nations to quake before you. Oh, that God would come again on our nation. We have had times of blessing and mighty revivals in our country. We have had people that God has used in revival, and he's using some people today, praise God. But the cry of our heart needs to be, Oh God, let the fire fall once more! In fact, that's why we're here in this conference. We want God's revival fire to come not from Yosemite, but from the God of Yosemite. Praise God! May the Lord send revival, holy revival fire down upon us. Today, there are churches across America that have more or less hunger for revival. There are evangelists who would love to see revival and have meetings, which are sometimes called revival meetings, and that's a good name. Reviving is bringing life back, and we need revival in our churches. Many a person needs revival. Could it be that some of you who are here today have a longing heart because you need the reviving touch of the Holy Spirit? Praise God! Our God is eager to come upon his people and bless them with the fullness of his Spirit and the outpouring of his Spirit's blessing. Revival has always fascinated me, the working of the Spirit. God has worked again and again over the years since Pentecost, and God has done wonderful things in revival. But, oh, that we would experience mighty revivals again. Why not before our Savior comes again? The darker the spiritual night in our churches, or outside where there are no churches, the darker the moral night in our nation, it's time to pray God. Oh, that in the words of Isaiah, oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down. Oh, that the mountains would tremble before you as when fire sets twigs ablaze. Come down to make your name known and cause the nations to quake before you. Oh, God, give us that quaking before God. God, give us that Holy Spirit conviction of our need of God's revival work in our churches and in our cities. Oh, that we might experience in our day. I would love to see before God takes me home to heaven, which may not be too long. At 93, what can I expect? But, oh, that I would get to hear that one more time mighty revival had come to our land. Oh, that you before you die would experience the outpouring of the Spirit in holy ghost revival. Thank God for the Old Testament revivals under King Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah. Thank God for the New Testament revivals at Pentecost and in the early church. Thank God for revival blessings during the Middle Ages when God sent for a limited time the mighty outpouring of the Spirit under Francis of Assisi and Savannah Rolla. Why be amazed when the Holy Spirit raises up people of God who are like a flaming meteor flashing across the sky? Such were people where it was John Wesley, after whom I am named, and after whom I named one of my sons, and George Whitfield, his friend who came here to the States. Revival did not exactly spread over the countryside, but it touched here and there. And in the history of our country, there were the old Methodist circuit riders. My grandfather was in Missouri. He alternated when the circuit rider could not be present. He held services in the continuity of the efforts of the circuit riders. Praise God. Many of those early circuit riders would come riding into a place. And I think this is where the nation got the example of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. I suppose they still memorize that in high school classes as we did in the days that I was in high school. Listen, my friends, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. It's the way it started out. Paul Revere helped the nation by riding as a circuit rider in the night because of the opposition of the French at the time of the Revolution. But be that as it may, we need revival today. Circuit riders didn't have means of transportation that we have, and we didn't have TV and all those things where the gospel can be gotten out into the homes of people. So today we have the advantage over that. But we have so much worldliness that can't compete with the gospel message that our people need God so desperately. Our country needs God so desperately. Charles G. Fiddy was a carrier of revival fire. Year after year, he would go to towns to which the Lord led him. For days or weeks at a time, sometimes for several months, he would be in a locality and give tremendous revival messages. He was so mightily used of God. When his health deteriorated, he would go back to Oberlin, Ohio, to the college that was stored at that time. At one time, Oberlin, Ohio, was a revival college. Those days are long gone and forgotten. But we have the God of revival still today. When Fiddy would physically have to rest, he would go back to Oberlin, Ohio, and rest up for several months. But almost always, soon after he got back, revival would break out in the college. He would seem to be a man of revival. Are you a man of revival? A woman of revival? Well, when you go to a place, does the spiritual temperature warm up? Does God's presence become graciously at work? Fiddy expected that if any unsaved person was present in a group to which he spoke, or a house that he visited, that before he left that place, he wanted to see salvation come for those unsaved people. And Fiddy, in place after place, just being in the home for a few hours, would see revival come to that home, family revival. Do any of your families need revival? Do any of you have unsaved children, or nieces and nephews, or grandsons and others? Do you carry revival with you? Are you a person of revival that takes the spirit of the God of revival? Our God is a God of revival. And just as he blessed in Old Testament time, so he can work in our time yet today. The Holy Spirit baptizes us with purity and power. Purity can be preserved by the Spirit's help, but power must be repeatedly renewed. I want to encourage you that the power of God in your life can be renewed. Praise God. He is a God who loves to manifest his presence. Fiddy tells us in his autobiography that sometimes a time would come when he would go to a house and visit for a meal or longer overnight, and someone in that house was unsaved. And he says sometimes that person didn't get saved before he left. If that happened for a time or two, he would take off and have special time for prayer and fasting. He expected that when he came to a home, if there was a member of that family that needed God, that they would find him before he left that home. And often that was the case. God is a God of revival. I'm not a man of revival. I long for revival. But I have loved ones that I have prayed for again and again, and I couldn't tell you how many times I've wept tears that they're still not saved. I'm longing to be more a man of revival. And I want you to be people of revival, that loved ones and friends would be touched by God's spirit in our life, and that they would surrender to the Lord as their Savior and Lord. One time, Fiddy was coming back to America, and he got so hungry on the shipboard for God to work in revival power, that when he came back off the ship, it just seemed like the Spirit of God hovered wherever he went. The revivals of 1858 and 1859 could be repeated in our day if God were just so mightily in our lives. Not only do we need personal revival, but we need to be so filled with the Spirit that wherever we go, we carry the Spirit of revival with us. Oh, may God give us pastors and laymen that wherever they touch, they carry with them the Spirit of revival. God repeat in our day what he has done at other times. When those revivals began to spread, in Fiddy's day, the time came when there were at least, historical records show, at least 10,000 towns across America that had daily noon prayer for revival. Would to God that that kind of a day would come again. Would to God that we would be so filled with the Spirit, filled with the presence of God, that there would be daily prayer meetings for revival. Do you know at that time, the Spirit of God so hovered over this country with more than 10,000 noon prayer meetings daily, that when ships were at sea and came within a few miles of the Atlantic coast, people would get under conviction on the ship and begin to cry and begin to pray. Do you know that one ship arrived in America and the last distance, everybody on the ship was saved or calling on God. When the captain came into shore before, they didn't have telegraph in those days. So before, but they had the flag system of signaling your conversation. You can talk by the flags, you know. And so before the ship came to the shore, they signal up on the send a preacher because people were praying all over the ship. Some were weeping. And so the captain gave orders that the flags would run up, that when the people came within enough within the shore, that the flags could be seen. Send a preacher, praise God. Oh, that God would send days like that again in our day. May God prepare us. Thank God for these three days emphasizing revival here. We need occasions like this across the country. We need people calling on God. Do you pray for revival in your family prayer? Does your church pray for revival in his Sunday worship services? Do we have that kind of a receptivity in our hearts and souls that prepare the way for the Lord to work? Oh God, like those people in Yosemite National Park. Called out, let the fire fall. Oh, that God would let the fire from heaven come upon our churches and come upon our lives. What difference would it make in your services if the fire fell? What difference would it make in your life if the fire fell? Are we hungry for God to demonstrate his presence? God help us to search for God's highest and best. There was such a hunger came across the country at that time that one day, one day only, but one day, Louisville, Kentucky, state daily paper had this headline, The Millennium Has Arrived. No, the millennium hadn't arrived yet, but the revival spirit was coming and spreading from town to town and the Louisville paper, the daily paper, I think it's called The Courier, something like that. The daily paper came out with that big headline, The Millennium Has Arrived. It will arrive. God's promises will be fulfilled, but we need a lot between that day and now. But God can work rapidly. When the spirit is working in power, he can accomplish things in surprisingly short period of time. At that time when Phineas was being so mightily used of God here, there was a missionary, I think he was Canadian, a missionary in China by the name of Goforth. Goforth was a mighty man of God with the Canadian Presbyterian Church. And Goforth said, someone said, Phineas, just a tract which talked about Goforth and his meetings and how God was using him. And Goforth turned to his wife and he said, if Goforth is right, I must find out about it. It was hungry to see the hand of God. About that time, the secretary of missions in the Canadian Presbyterian Church was going to travel through China on mission business. And God led him to ask Goforth, would you like to travel with me in company on my trip? And Brother Goforth agreed to go along with him. He said, I want to see if the reports are true about the revivals that are happening in China. This is what the mission secretary said to Goforth. And of course, Goforth was eager to find out for himself. And so the two men worked together and they went to Korea and they went to China. And everywhere they went, they heard reports of what God was doing on the mission fields in those days. Why don't we feel here of mighty things like that in our day? Are we not close enough to God to pray the prayer of faith for revival on our fields? Oh, friends, this is a heart- searching thing. I speak from experience. Before we went to China, God had given me a life verse. And before I met my wife, my first wife, before I met her, I was praying for revival. And the first date we had together in Bible college, I don't know who spoke first, but before the evening was over, we said we agreed that we would share our life verse. I don't hear many of those nowadays. Do you have a life verse? That you feel God has specially given you? I had one from my childhood on. When I was a missionary in India those 25 years, God led me to hold special meetings in several places. I was invited, that is, and I felt led to accept the invitation. And when I got to some mission compounds, the missionaries would greet me and say, oh, here's a verse God's given us for you. I was just coming for a week or less, perhaps, to be with them. But they'd gotten a verse from the Bible for me. I didn't think to look this up in advance, but I think I can do it very quickly. Here's the life verse that God gave to my wife and to me before we met. And on our first date together, we went and got us off the Bible College campus, went to a nearby store, and each got us an ice cream cone. It wasn't that expensive treating your girlfriend in those days as it may be now. Then we came back to the Bible College to one of the empty classrooms. With our Bibles. And we said, let's share our life verses. And here's the verse that God had given to both of us without knowing that anybody else had this as a life verse. Isaiah 54, 3, and the first part of verse 4. Enlarge the place of your tent. Stretch your tent curtains wide. Do not hold back. Lengthen your cords. Strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left. And that was the verse God had given us. So we went to India with that life verse. The night before we sailed to India, in those days you didn't go by plane. You had to go by ship. We were farewelled from the home of the president of our society in Los Angeles. Mrs. Charles Common, who wrote the daily devotional book, Streams in the Desert, which was the world's most used devotional book until recent years. And now, my utmost for his highest, by Oswald Chambers as he was. Oswald Chambers was a friend of the Commons. When he came to America, he met the Commons. They took him to Japan to see our work in Japan. He was so impressed. He then took them to Britain, and that's how we got started in the British Isles in the first decade of our society and have precious British sources of prayer and finance and personnel ever since. But when we were our night before we sailed, there were some of the officials of our society in the home of Mrs. Common and the seven new missionaries who were going as a group on the ship. We were there being farewelled and some of our office staff there were there together. Mrs. Common told us a series of stories of how marvelously God miraculously answered prayer in different ways for the society. And then she said, I want to give you my husband's life verse. And to my surprise, it was the same verse that God had given to Betty and to me. Enlarge the place of your tent. Stretch your tent curtains wide. Do not hold back. Strengthen your cards and lengthen your stakes and lengthen your cards, for you will spread out to the right and to the left. Oh, isn't that wonderful? The founder of our society has the same verse that we have. And when we got to India, we found that was the life verse of William Carey, who's called the founder of modern missions, who was the missionary to India first of the well-known missionaries in India. So I got to stand in William Carey's pulpit. It said, sacred to the memory. Of William Carey, whose motto ever was, and then it quoted this verse in the scripture. Praise the Lord. So God wants us to grow and to reach out. He doesn't want us to be a church with low level of spiritual life. I hope revival fires have burned in your church, your local church this year. And if they haven't, I hope that they will burn in your church next year. There's a little bit of time left yet this year, might do it, but if it doesn't happen this year, I hope it comes. I hope God gives it to your church next year. We need revival across America. God, wake up our nation. From the president of the United States to the loneliest member of the nation. We all need a nation where God the spirit is at work. Oh God, send revival. Amen. Like the Yosemite picker, let the fire fall. Oh God, let your holy fire fall. Do you know in those years when they were praying for revival, did I mention that the ships would begin when ships came across Atlanta, they didn't have telegraph in those days, didn't have radio in those days. So they didn't know what was happening in America except as it had letters. And so ships would come up and in the middle of the ocean, people would get to get under conviction of sin. And begin to pray in their cabins and weep. And the captain would get disturbed. What's going on in my ship? And so he would said, from 150 to 200 miles out at sea, they would begin to come under Holy Spirit conviction. And God worked in power. I started to tell you about Goforth and his mission secretary went to China to check out if the reports of revival in Korea were correct. And they found they were blessedly correct. The Holy Spirit was working in Korea. So the mission secretary turned around and came back to America after they left Korea. But Jonathan Goforth was a missionary to China. And when he got into China, the first place he got to, he started telling the story of the revival he had seen and experienced in Korea. And they got hungry in China. And they began to pray in China. And God sent revival in China. And after a half a week or a week, Goforth would go to the next center. And again, he would tell the story of revival. And again, the presence of God would settle down. That was in the 1800s. Can God do that in the 1900s or the 2000 now? Oh, for God to send revival like that. Oh, for our mission boards and our churches to have that kind of a hunger and desire that check out revival and see revival spread to our countries. When I left India, in spite of having the promises of God, after 25 years in India when the OMS board asked me to come back to the States to help in the work at headquarters, I wasn't wanting to leave India because God had called me to China. But if they needed me at headquarters, I was willing to come back. Little did I think that they would make me the president within two years' time. But as I came back on the ship, I was so ashamed we'd had so few souls in India. Oh, I don't think I slept one wink. Now, by this time, planes have started to fly. But they didn't go nonstop like they do today. So we had to stop at Honolulu on the way back to Los Angeles where our headquarters were. And I prayed all the way from Delhi, India to Los Angeles. I didn't sleep a wink the whole way. I was praying and calling to God. Oh, God, where is the revival? You gave us promises that we would spread out. But after 25 years and trying to teach our students to fast and pray, and fasting and praying ourselves as missionaries and as Indian co- workers, after 25 years, we only have 25 churches and 1,500 baptized believers. Oh, I was so broken-hearted. I prayed with tears in my eyes and times and other times in my heart, even if they were in my eyes. Oh, God, where are the souls? Where are the souls? You promised, you promised, you promised. Oh, God, where are the souls? Someplace between Honolulu and Los Angeles. I felt led of the Holy Spirit to ask God to help me on the next year of furlough. I was then beginning. I didn't expect to stay in the States. I expected just to be home one year. And I asked God to help me to find 1,000 people who would promise to pray 15 minutes a day for one year for God to give us souls in India. Now, that's a lot. I was pretty brazen, perhaps, to ask that. When people don't know that much about a country, you're going to have to have pretty much of a burden on your heart to keep praying for 15 minutes a day, day after day after day. But that's what I asked. And God, instead of giving me just 1,000, He gave over 1,500 who made that promise. And God put His seal on my appeals. I can remember in South Africa, a youth rally when 15 churches were cooperating together in a youth rally. And I made that appeal. And that night, God gave several dozen people. And I saw the students, the young people, standing in a queue, in a line, waiting for their turn to sign the papers that they would pray 15 minutes a day. I saw them weeping as they stood there. The Holy Spirit had touched their hearts and moved them. And in South Africa, in Heidelberg, not Heidelberg, Germany, Heidelberg, South Africa, I was in a church one night. And God so gripped the people. Oh, God gripped the people in more places. But this was outstanding. And there was an old woman took my hand in her hand. And with her one hand was patting my hand. And the other hand was beneath my hand. Oh, brother, do it, brother, do it. I've been sinning. I've been sinning against the Lord. God knows I've been praying. God knows I've been praying. But I've just been praying for South Africa. I haven't been praying for India. I haven't been praying for the world. Oh, brother, do it. She was broken in heart that she had been failing God in her prayer life. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, you know who you're talking to? I said, no. They said, this is the aunt of our prime minister. I said, do you know how old she is? I said, no. She was in her 80s. But she was broken hearted that she had not had a burden for the lost in other parts of the world. God helped me put the challenge before people. And before the end of that year, God gave me 1,500. I asked for 1,000. He gave me more than 1,500 people in USA, in Britain, in South Africa, in Australia, and New Zealand. During that year, God gave me more than 1,500 people who promised to pray each day 15 minutes for one year. And do you know, God began to answer prayer in India. God began to answer prayer. Now, I'm now 93 years of age, and I can't forget my numbers. But my wife is sitting down here, and she can check me if I give the wrong number. But I'm quite sure that I'm going to get pretty close. We now have over 3,000 churches in India, right? And we now have over 200,000 baptized believers in India. And now our India church, we don't have one missionary left in India, but our work is still there. One of my former students later became the president of the seminary where I was a president, the Al-Habab Bible Seminary. Then he became the head of the evangelical fellowship of India. I was the chairman of the evangelical fellowship of India. That's the evangelicals across India, like the NAE in the United States and the Canadian Evangelical Fellowship. And now he is not only serving as that, but he has now been elected the head of the Asia Evangelical Fellowship, my former student. I'm so glad the Lord is using him. He's a sweet-spirited brother. But there's still so much need for souls all over. We still need prayer. Maybe God will put a burden on your heart and get you prevailing in prayer. Prevailing in prayer takes time. Prevailing in prayer takes faithfulness to Holy Spirit-given burden. But I believe the Holy Spirit will give a burden to those who seek to be obedient to God. Now our church in India, we don't have one missionary left there, all national leadership. And they've had a meeting together without one missionary being present. And they've set their goal for 2020. That's just over 10 years from now. And they're asking God to give them 10,000 churches and if you know anything about planting churches, you know that that's something to found and have growing 10,000 churches. And they're asking God to give them two million new believers. Is that possible? Is that too much? Not for God. Not for the God we serve. And we need revival in America and we need it in India and we need it on our fields around the world. It's time for Jesus to be coming back. But our task is not complete. Is your family all saved? Do you have loved ones for whom you are responsible before God? Are you obeying God? Thank God for this revival conference. Brothers and sisters, I believe we all need revival. We need to be gripped by the Holy Spirit. We need to prevail in prayer. We need to serve a God who is a prayer answering God. But we must prevail before him. Sometimes people say, well, what do you mean by prevail? Well, I thought everybody understood what prevailing in prayer meant. That's quality prayer where we pray through in the expression of the church in past years, praying through, praying until we have the assurance of God's answer. Amen. I see someone raising their hand. They're agreeing with me. I'm so glad that there are those who are here. I wish you all felt convinced of that. God wants us to prevail in prayer. Can we prevail in prayer for revival to come to our churches once more? Can you prevail in prayer for God to come to your church? Can you prevail in prayer for the things that God is longing to do across this world? Oh, that Yosemite Park, National Park ranger who said, called each evening, let the fire fall. Oh, winter God, let the fire of God would fall upon our churches and upon our homes and upon our gatherings of one kind or another. Fire of God, come. Oh God, teach us to pray. Teach us to prevail. Teach us to see God's victory. I told you about Goforth who went to Korea and then he went to China and wherever he went, people got prayer burdens. I hope you will go back from this conference carrying a prayer burden. Do you know what it means to carry prayer burdens? Oh, I want to know more about what it means because I still have loved ones for whom I'm praying every day and often weeping. But my brothers and sisters, it's going to take mighty prevailing prayer. That's the title of one of the books that I have written. I was thrilled that one of the group attending this conference came to me and told me he was a reader of that book. He came all the way from India perhaps for other things as well, but he's here in this conference. Oh God, teach us to prevail in prayer. Do you know what it means to wrestle in prayer? Paul said, we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and the powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high places. I will tell you we have a world that has wickedness in high places. We have it across our world. We may have it even in our own country sometimes. Oh God, help us to learn to prevail in prayer. No, an angel doesn't come down and wave a flag in front of you and say you've prevailed. But as you prevail in prayer, as your heart cries out to God, you can carry that burden of prayer in the heart. You can have a tear in your heart even if it isn't in your eye and God may even let you have tears in your eyes as you pray for family members, friends and loved ones, as you pray for your church, as you pray for your church in your area. Oh God, send us revival. This is why we're meeting here today. We want to see God work in revival power. When Goforth went into China and told this story, people would say to him, oh, that's okay. That happens in Korea. But you don't know China. Well, he knew China a bit because he was a missionary there. He said, you don't know China. You can't expect the Chinese people to humble themselves before God. You can't expect them to get down on their knees and pray and weep for their nation. Why not? You would expect them to become believers. And is it an unusual thing for a believer to carry a prayer burden and not weep in prayer? My mother welcomed the fact that I was called to India when I was five years of age. And she would pray for me and cover me with prayer. Oh, I've gotten so many answers to prayer that I think may have been partially, at least, prayed for by my mother. But she would pray. My first wife, who's with the Lord in heaven now, was always a little doubtful when she'd hear me say that mother wept every day in family prayer when she came to India. She could pray for other countries and other things, spiritual needs as well, and not weep. But as sure as the day of family prayer time came when she got to family prayer and when she got in that family prayer to praying for India, oh, she would start to sob. And as far as honestly, I believe, I cannot remember one time since I was a child until mother went to heaven. But when mother wept when she prayed for China, I now have around a half a million books of my books inside China. And I feel that that's partly because of mother. You know who's been printing them? Do you know the division in China between the three self-churches and the other churches? The three self-churches are the government-recognized ones with government approval and people think that they're mainly not spiritual. But you know, the three self-seminaries are printing my books inside China. And they have a three-self edition and they have a house church. This is what 93 years is doing to me. I'm getting forgetful. I'm not getting inaccurate. I've got my checkpoint right down here with my wife. But really, the government that has objected to some Christian work is printing my books, my 10 books, Mighty Prevailing Prayer, A Blaze for God, Touch God Through Prayer. They're printing them in Chinese and going out in China. Who would have thought that God would do a thing like that? Hallelujah! I believe it's God answering the tears and prayers of my mother over the years. Of course, I have prayed and continue to pray every day. But I think Mother's prayers are being answered. You know, if we pray and prevail before God, we'll be surprised when we get to heaven what God has done because we have prevailed in prayer. And we may be surprised at what God didn't do that he might have done if we had prevailed in prayer. Oh, let's believe in revival. Is it time for me to stop? Okay. Past time for me to stop. I'm sorry. In Korea, the church that began when the first five converts of the revival in Wales, during the revival in Wales, they were excommunicated from the church because they said that they had never been born again. And the denomination said, how can you say you've not been born again when you were a baptized member of our church? They expected that everybody who was baptized would be automatically born again. So they were kicked out and they formed a gospel hall. And whenever I went to Korea, which I did a number of times in those years, I would go past there and they would have me pray. Well, one year I had the two brothers, part of the first five converts in the revival in Wales. We were friends. They were kicked out of their church. So they built another church and the one brother was the organist and the other brother was a song leader and so on. So I would go there every year in Gross Island. But they took me one day to show me how the revival began. Do you know how the revival in Wales began? Before it was finished, it leaped from country to country. More than five million converts are claimed for the revival that began in Wales. And the boy who had been praying for revival in Wales every day from the time he had to work in the coal mines at 13 years of age until he was 26 when the burden for his souls was so great. He had to stop and go out. His name was Evan Roberts. I have a sheet of his Bible in a glass case in my office. The last time I was in Wales, his Evan Roberts sister-in-law was closing house at Island Bay. The name of the cottage that that's where she lived. She said, I'm going to give you a page from Evan Roberts' Bible. Oh, I said, don't, don't, don't tear his Bible. She said, I gave a page to Billy Graham and I'm going to give one to you because at that time I was editing Revival magazine in 13 different languages. And so anyway, the day when the two first converts took me to the spot and showed me and they said, there's where I was sitting when the fire fell. Ooh, something just went through me like that. When the one brother-in- law said that there's where I was sitting when the fire fell. You know how that revival began? Evan Roberts, 26 years old, never finished grade school but he was called of God and was used by God. And so they took me to the room where it happened and the chairs were still there in the same arrangement. It was not a big room. It was right next to the church at North Island where the revival began. And Evan got the burden on his heart. He had started the Bible college and he came home and his family said, what are you doing? Oh, he said, God's gonna send a revival and there's gonna be 200,000 people saved. Oh, they thought something's gone wrong with Evan Roberts' brain. He hasn't been studying in the Bible. He's been working in the coal mine for 13 years since he was 13 years of age. Something's wrong with his brain. And then he went to the pastor of the church and he said, pastor, I want you to let me speak to the young people of the church. He said, God's gonna save 200,000 souls here. And the pastor thought, what's going wrong with Evan's brain? Something's wrong with him. He said, Evan, I'll tell you what. Monday night is youth night in the church. And after the close of the youth night service, I'll pronounce the benediction. And then I'll say, now Evan would like to talk to some of you if you'd like to stay back. He says, after they stay back, then you can talk to them. Well, two of the first five converts told me how that service went. 13 stayed back and they were in the first two rows on the right-hand side and then three in the third row. And so Evan said, the first one, stand up. He stood up. Repeat these words after me. Evan said, it's like a little general. Repeat these words after me. Lord, have mercy on my soul and send a revival to Wales. Amen. All right, sit down. Now you get up. The second one stood up. Repeat this prayer after me. Lord, have mercy on my soul and send revival to Wales. All right, sit down. He sat down. He went down the line, first row, second row, and the three in the third row. There was no revival yet. You said, well, what an innocent young man who doesn't know what it takes to bring revival. He said, do it again. So they started down the line. He said, stand up. Sit down. You stand up. Sit down. He went down the line the second time. No revival. Do it again, he said. So they started down the third row. And the third person on the third row, when it came to him, he broke down and wept before God, and revival began. The most unlikely way to begin a revival. But that's what God used. Because here was a boy, he was sincere. And he had been praying as he worked in the coal mine every day, picking the coal mine, shoveling it, working away every day for 13 years, since he was 13 years of age when he began in the revival. Evan Roberts, simple young man, no great evangelist. If God used Evan Roberts, why couldn't he use you? And they say before the revival hopped from country to country across the world. Began in Wales and went across. It came to India. I know the story from India angle. More than 5 million people were won to God in the revival fires that leaped from country to country. We could use that kind of revival today. We need it in our country. Oh, Lord, teach us to pray. That's the Bible prayer as John also taught his disciples. Lord, teach us to prevail in prayer. We've got a lot of churches that are almost barren. We've got evangelists, their ministry is almost barren. Oh, God, teach us to pray. Teach us to prevail in prayer. Oh, God, send revival. May God teach us in this conference even to go home with this determination that we will pray and prevail in prayer until revival comes. Praise God. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/Cns8k9DFPlI.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/wesley-duewel/rend-the-heavens-and-come-down/ ========================================================================