In this sermon, the speaker shares a personal experience of being asked to speak after another minister who preached on the same topic. Instead of preaching on the prodigal son, the speaker felt led to focus on the brother of the prodigal son. He then goes on to mention that he has developed twelve sermons based on the prodigal son illustration. The sermon then shifts to discussing a revival that took place among the zoo people eight years ago, highlighting the awe-inspiring presence of God during that time. The speaker also shares a story of a missionary who refused to surrender something to God and ultimately died during a prayer meeting. The sermon concludes with the reminder that judgment begins at the house of God and a reference to a conversation between Duncan Campbell and a visitor about the spiritual state of the people on the island of Lewis.

I'd like to say that this is my last opportunity this afternoon to share with you in this pre-conference rallies, and it has been a real blessing for me to be involved. I guess I'm one of the newcomers when it comes to the work of Canadian Revival Fellowship, and when I first came to this country I was very much concerned about the fact that there would be people who carry the same burden and this same sense of desire when it comes to the promises of God in Revival, and isn't it wonderful for us to know that God has encouraged people everywhere. There's a remnant of God's people who are concerned about Revival. They want to see it happen, and they will not be satisfied with anything less. I think, you know, when we have been in Revival, we get so spoiled. And my brother and sister, when you are in anything which is less than a movement of the Spirit of God, I don't know what you experience, but it doesn't satisfy me. I feel it doesn't move me at all when you sometimes sit in meetings like that and people try to manipulate the Spirit of God and try to stir it up and work it up, and you just sit there and it doesn't touch you, it doesn't affect you, because by the grace of God we have experienced some of the deeper things. You know one of the greatest sins amongst people who have been amongst, in the midst of the movement of the Spirit of God, is the sin of criticism. And I think we need to be very careful that when God has shown to us the deep things of God that we don't look upon other people and say, why is it that they don't see the things the way that we see it? The Bible says, if you see your brother doing a sin which is not unto death, just one thing, he said you ought to pray. And we need to be very grateful to God to give us opportunities like this. A number of people have come to me and asked me about a number of different things about the whole concept of the subject of Revival. And I was asked to speak this afternoon on what it means to pray for Revival and spiritual awakening. And this morning when I listened to Mr. Bill McLeod, I said to myself, well isn't this amazing, because a lot of the things that he said this morning is what I want to say this afternoon. I once spoke at a conference with another minister and we were asked to share in the very same meeting. And he was given about 25 minutes and I was asked to speak after him for about 35 minutes. And I wanted to preach a message in the light of the prodigal son. And you wouldn't believe this, but here this man got up and he began to preach on the prodigal son. So I sat behind him and I was in agony and I said to myself, well one of two things has happened here. He has all stolen my sermon or God is trying to say to us something. But you know as I sat behind the pulpit, the Lord began to minister to me about the brother of the prodigal son. And I thought, well if I can't preach on the prodigal, I'm going to give his brother a shot. And that sermon, I got four points for my sermon and that sermon became four sermons. And then God gave me four points on the father of the prodigal and those became four sermons. Now I've got 12 sermons on the prodigal and his brother and the father. But it's been wonderful to be here. I would have loved to speak to you on the subject of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. What it means to live under that marvelous anointing of the Spirit of God. But the time does not allow that. But I want us this afternoon to look at a little bit of what it means to pay the price of revival. Just at the lunch table, we were talking about what revival is and discussing the reality when revival comes. And I think my friends, it's so possible for us to look at the whole concept of revival and we just talk about the wonderful blessings of God and revival. My brother and sister, I don't know if you'll appreciate me saying this, but revival is predominantly an aspect of the judgment of God upon the lives of people. Now let me give you one illustration before we turn to the passage that we're going to deal with this afternoon. In the revival amongst the Zulu people about eight years ago, God was working in the most wonderful way. And one of the things about that Zulu revival that struck me in the most incredible way was the awesomeness of the presence of God. When you visit the mission station and you leave the mission station, you will discover that for days there is one tremendous impression upon your life and that's the concept of the presence of God. For days you find yourselves being taken up with the character of God in revival and the righteousness and the holiness of God in revival. But eight years ago, in the midst of the revival, it happened so that one of the missionaries was, God began to speak to him about something in his life and he was not willing to surrender that to God. And he began to keep it back from God and the Spirit of God was striving with this dear man who knew the Lord Jesus as his personal Savior and he refused to submit. God's Spirit was grieved, the Spirit of God was quenched in his life because of that. And then one morning he stood up in a prayer meeting and he began to pray and he prayed the normal prayer that he probably prayed most of those days and suddenly in the midst of his prayer meeting, or rather in the middle of his prayer, this man stopped and he made a statement. He said, there is something that is piercing me, there is something that is piercing me. And the first time that he said it, he dropped down dead and they carried him out of the room. It happened eight years ago. You see revival, and more than once since, my brother and sister, is something of a judgment of God. You know what the Bible says? The Bible says judgment must begin at the house of God. A man came to the island of Lourdes and asked Mr. Campbell, he came from a church in London, and he said to Duncan Campbell, he said, can you tell me what is the secret of this revival? Why is God working in such a way? He said, I'm losing members of my congregation all the time. And Duncan Campbell turned to this man and said, sir, he said it was not necessary for you to come to the island of Lourdes. He said, I want you to go back to your study in London. I want you to go and sit on the floor, and I want you to draw a circle around yourself, and I want you to pray this prayer. You say, Lord God, will you send revival, but send revival right within the circle. And my brother and sister, that's when God begins to deal with us. That's when God begins to burden us to pray through for revival. People have been asking me about this concept of what it means to pray through. What it means to persevere in the very presence of God. I think of my African friend, Petros Malepa was his name. About five miles from our farm, in southern Africa, there was a large game reserve. They reckon about the size of the state of Massachusetts. It's called the Krieger National Park. And quite often it happens so that these wild animals came through. They broke the lines, the fences, and came through. In fact, I was chased by elephants twice those days before it was great fun. I'm not sure about that today, but that's the kind of lifestyle that we were brought up in. I remember one morning, I wanted to spend the day in the presence of God in the place of prayer. You know, the African people, when you speak about prayer, they would say to you, we're going to the mountain to pray. And if you ask them and say, when are you coming back? They say, we don't know. And I said, well, what are you going to do? They said, we stay there until God tells us to come back. And that's the kind of frame of mind in which those people were living. And he, I went to spend the day in prayer. I was all on my own on the top of this little mountain. And I was on my own to the top of this little mountain on my way, I should say. And as I was on my way, about a mile from our farmhouse or so, there was a dry riverbed. You know, we don't get a lot of rain in the area where I was brought up. Maybe about an inch and a half or so every year. It's African bush-south. And it was in the rainy season. And it was raining sort of softly. The ground was just nice and wet. And the sand in this dry riverbed was quite wet. And as I came through, I stopped within my tracks. Because as I looked down into this dry riverbed, I saw the tracks of the lion. And I stopped right within my tracks. And I realized when I looked, I didn't look too far, but on the other side of the river, about 300 or 400 yards away, I heard the guinea fowls. And if you were brought up in Africa, the guinea fowls make a certain sound like... you know, that there is something wrong. So I knew that this lion had just gone through. Until I turned around and I ran for my life to get home. And about 5 or 6 days later, I was sitting in my study, and this dear man came to visit me. And he sat in front of me. And we spent some time in prayer together. And when I turned to him and I said to him, Pete Ross, I said, I wanted to go and spend a day in prayer the other day, and he said, so how did it go? I said, well I didn't make it, and he looked at me a little bit amazed as it were, and he said to me, what happened? And I told him the incident, and you know that man, look at me, with the most amazing expression upon his face, he almost said to me, now why is it that you were afraid of a lion? And I sat there and I said to myself, well, you know it's easy for this guy to look at me like this way because he was in my shoes, but you know it was almost as if he could read my mind. And he began to tell me, he said, you know, he said, some time ago, he said, God spoke to me, and God told me to go and pray. He said, I went to the mountain to spend some days in prayer and fasting, and he said, when I came to the foot of the mountain, he said, there was a leopard standing on the top of this little mountain, and for us in Africa, the two most dangerous animals, it's not the lion or an elephant, it's the leopard and the buffalo. And he said, as I came to the foot of this mountain, I saw the leopard, and he said, the first thing what I do, he said, I fell on my knees, and I began to pray, and I said, so what happened? He said, I prayed because I lost the peace of God, and he said, I prayed and I prayed and I prayed, until the peace of God came back into my heart, and I said, so what did you do? He said, I began to climb this mountain, and he said, then I saw him again, and I lost the peace of God again, and I fell on my knees, and I began to pray, I still remember he said to me, as I was praying, he said, I looked up and I saw him, and he was doing this, he said, he heard me as I was crying to God. You know what happened, my brother and sister? He did that about five times, and he said to me, after the fifth time, when God gave me peace again, he said, I got to the top of the mountain, and he said, the leopard was gone, and he turned to me, and he said to me, white man, he said, if God has told you to pray, why were you afraid for the lion? And you know my friends, I was absolutely astonished, in fact, to be honest with you my, he never knew this, but I often went to that mountain many times after that, to spend days in prayer, but I always took my father's rifle, I never told my African friend that, but he was one of the most amazing men, simply trust God, praying through, refusing to take no for an answer, standing upon the promises of the word of God, persevering in the place of prayer, and I think there are so many of God's people who have lost the whole concept of what it means to pray through. Oh, I hope this is injury time, but turn with me to Genesis chapter 22, very briefly. We're going to read from Genesis chapter 22, and we just read a few verses from that marvelous passage of the word of God. Genesis chapter 22, And it came to pass after these things, that God had tempted Abram, and said unto him, Abram, and Abram said, Here am I, and he said, Take thou thy son, thy only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, which an offering, therefore a burnt offering, upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of. And Abram rose up early in the morning, and he settled his house, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and played the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then in the third day Abram lifted up his eyes, and he saw the place of Pharaoh, and Abram said unto his young men, Abide ye here, for the house on either side will go yonder, and worship, and we will come again to you. And Abram took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son, and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and they went both of them together. And Isaac spoke unto Abram his father, and said, My father, and Abram said, Here am I, son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abram said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of them together. When they came to the place which God had told him, and Abram built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him in the altar upon the wood. And Abram stretched forth his hand, and he took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abram, Abram. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him. For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not veiled thy son, thy only son from me. And Abram lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abram went, and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abram called the name of the place, Jehovah-Jeriah, as it is said to this day. And the mount of the Lord, it shall be seen. Father, as we bow in thy presence in this afternoon session, we thank you for the way that you have been speaking to us already today. We thank you for the privilege of listening to these wonderful men of God, expounding the word of God. We thank you that we can constantly find ourselves being absolutely broken in the presence of God. And Father, we feel like those two disciples of old when they were with the Lord Jesus, and they said to one another, Did not our hearts burn within us when he spoke to us on the way? We want to open ourselves again this afternoon under the precious blood of the Lord Jesus. We want to ask that your spirit will minister to us again. We thank you, Lord, that sometimes you speak to us through that still, small voice as we respond to you. Father, I pray this afternoon that you will help us to come to grips with this concept of the price of praying through for revival, because we ask it in Jesus' precious name. Amen. There are many wonderful promises in the Bible when it comes to the outpouring of God's Spirit, especially in the Old Testament. And what a wonderful blessing it is for us to study those passages in the Old Testament that deals with the old reality of God sending revival. I think of that marvelous passage in Ezekiel chapter 47 that speaks to us about the stages of revival. Water to the ankles, then waters to the knees. When God helps us to step into the river of God, and the water to the knees speaks to me about the prayers and revival. When God begins to help us to pray through, we sense the burden and the brokenness of the Spirit of God. We begin to sense the urgency of a need. And then God helps us to persevere. We get right through to God. He gives us a word from Himself. We begin to thank Him. And we look to God with expectation, and He comes. And then the Bible speaks of water to the loins. I wonder if you have ever asked yourselves what that means. You see, my brethren and sisters, there are stages in revival. And I believe that this afternoon. And the water to the loins speaks to me of those signs of the stirrings of the Spirit of God. When we begin to sense that God is breathing upon us. Revival has not come yet. Sometimes in some movements of God's Spirit, it could have been three months when they sensed those stirrings of God's Spirit as the Holy Spirit was omnipresent, preparing the hearts of people for God to come in revival. And then the Bible speaks of a river that could not be passed over. That, my brethren and sisters, comes when God lets His Spirit loose upon us as His people. I wonder this afternoon if you realize that the land of Canada, as far as I can gather, has never experienced a coast to coast outpouring of the Spirit of God. There have been isolated places where God poured out His Spirit. I think of what Mr. McLeod mentioned this morning about the outpouring of God's Spirit during that wonderful time some years ago. And little pockets of the outpouring of God's Spirit has come. But never in the history of Canada have we experienced a coast to coast outpouring of the Spirit of God. Do you realize that some time ago, the United Nations has put Canada on their list as a non-Christian country? My brethren and sisters, it gives us a tremendous vision and an insight and a burden to seek the face of God for an outpouring of the Spirit. But then there are wonderful passages in the Old Testament that speaks to us about God revealing Himself to us and the cost of what it means to pray for revival. If you study the names of God in the Old Testament, those wonderful names of God, you will discover that when Abram came to this place, when he made this utterance, that in the Hebrew thought, that what Abram really said to God, he was mentioning here something of the provision of God. In my study of this passage, you know what I discovered? When Abram mentioned that name of God, he was not so much speaking of the God who provides in His material blessings, but my brethren and sisters, that name of God can also be interpreted as the God who pours out His Spirit in revival blessing. And this is when revival comes to the life of one individual person who is willing to seek the face of God in that capacity. Now, you know what I want us to do this afternoon? I want us to look at those verses because if you look at those verses, you will discover that there were no less than three places in those verses that we have read together where this man came to the place where he responded to God, where he made oral statement, here am I, or here am I. And my brethren and sisters, those three places is giving us the wonderful concept of what it means to come to this place personally, where we can say that God has poured out His Spirit upon me in revival blessing. Now, what were those first three places? Well, first of all, you will discover that the Bible says that after these things, God came to His servant Abram. And the moment when He spoke to Abram, the moment when He mentioned to him on his name, there was the sense of response to God. You see what happened in those verses? When God came and He spoke to this man, here was a man who was at the place where he was willing to respond to God. The moment when God spoke to him, he responded and he said, Behold, here I am. And I wonder this afternoon, my brethren and sisters, when we consider this concept of revival in my personal relationship with God, if God will come to us in these sessions, and God is going to speak to us personally, and God is going to call upon us and upon our name, I wonder this afternoon what kind of response God is going to get from you and me as a believer. You know, I think sometimes our problems with these conferences, that it's so wonderful for us to sit in meetings like this, and we listen to the voice of God, and we get blessed, we pray together, we respond to the voice of God, and yet my brethren and sisters, it can be a mile wide, and sometimes it's only an inch deep. Sometimes we go back to our places, and the things that God has said to us, got through to our intellect, my intellect was satisfied, it got through to the realm of my emotions, and my emotions were stirred, but it never got through to the realm of my will. Many times we come to conferences like this, and we go back to our places, and the blessing of God does not last, because never have I got the opportunity to touch down to my will, and bring me to that place where my will becomes part of His plan for my life as a believer. But here was a man who could hear the voice of God. Here was a man who was willing to listen to the voice of God. And you sit here this afternoon, because we're dealing with the concept of revival personally. My brethren and sisters, the moment when God confronts us with revival, you know one word comes to the surface, and that's the word sacrifice. That's the word paying the price. That's the word selling ourselves out to God, dying to ourselves, surrendering ourselves to God, become bankrupt in the presence of God, and being absolutely abandoned to the Lord Jesus Christ. And the moment when God spoke to this man, the moment when God called him upon His name, that moment this man had an attitude to God where he said, Lord, I'm responding to Your voice. I'm responding to what You are going to say to me. You know, it's wonderful when God began to speak to us. My brethren and sisters, sometimes He speaks to us collectively. Other times He speaks to us personally. But when the voice of God is coming to us, it's always very precious. Because suddenly I began to realize that here is God's voice speaking to me as an individual. Here is God's voice challenging me. I was preaching in a meeting a number of weeks ago on this Sunday morning in this large Mennonite Rev. church where my wife and myself spent the day. It happened so that in the very first service that morning, God's Spirit broke into our midst. They've got two large morning services in that specific church. And God broke into the meeting. And the first one to come to the altar that Sunday morning was no one else than the senior pastor of his church. And he began to pray. And he said, Lord, I was at a meeting some time ago, and you spoke to me in that meeting about something in my life, and I wanted to surrender to You, but somehow there was something that kept me back. And he said, I did not respond in that meeting. And do you know what this man said? For something like three months, he did not hear the voice of God. You see, my brethren, my sisters, the voice of God is so sensitive. The voice of God, my friends, is so precious. The voice of God is so tender. And do you know the greatest fear in my own heart is that I would become like the dog of the blacksmith? When the man stepped into the blacksmith's shop, the dog was lying under the table fast asleep. The man was working away, and the sparks were flying, and there was an incredible sense of noise there. And the man turned to the blacksmith and said, How is it possible that this dog can be fast asleep under this table? The blacksmith said, Sir, he said, You should have seen him the first day. He said, I couldn't get him near me. He said, But every day the dog came closer. And he said, Eventually the dog is so close that he found himself fast asleep under the table while I'm working away in this blacksmith's shop. You see, my brethren and sisters, God's voice is very tender. God's voice is very sensitive. I will never forget, it happened to me once in my life, that I've missed this moment when God promised to break in at this simple conference where I was speaking. It was a holiday convention in the city of Edinburgh in Scotland. And I was asked to speak at this theological college with another gentleman. And we began to share at those lectures, and God began to breathe upon those meetings in a very precious and a very wonderful way. The president of that school was also involved, and I remember the final morning came, and I gave my two lectures on the Holy Spirit and His ministry, and there was that awesome sense of the presence of God. And we knew that God was going to break in. And then He came and He gave His two lectures, and after that we had a prolonged time of prayer. And you know upon that prayer meeting, God was stirring our hearts, and we sensed that the break was going to come, and I had to rush into the town, and I said to myself, I'm going to wait, I don't want to miss this. And I waited, the people were praying, and the break didn't come. Eventually I got up and I said to myself, I must go, because I'm going to be late. And I got into my little car, and I was driving down to the city a few minutes ago, and I was driving down Princess Street. And as I was driving, suddenly God spoke to me, right within my heart. And it was as if the Lord said to me, the blessing has come. God has broken into the meeting, and I knew that. And I remember I turned that little car, and I rushed back to this theological school. And the meeting was all over. The break has come, people have dispersed into their different rooms, and they were on their faces, and on their knees before God. And I literally ran into the office of the president of the school. And as I ran into his office, he said, dear friend of mine, as I ran into the office, he sat behind his desk, and the tears were streaming down his cheeks. And I stood there and I said, Colin, I said, what has happened? He said, Gerard, God has come. I said, when? You know what he said? Five minutes after you left. You see, my brother and sister, we can be part of a conference of this, and yet when God's seen the break, it's quite possible for us to miss it. But here was a man who was at the place where he was hearing something of a voice of God. Can I ask you this afternoon, can God entrust unto us His voice? But can God call us this afternoon on our names? Can God say to me, Peter, or John, or whatever my name is, Mary? Because my brother and sister, the moment when the voice of God came, with that sense of the voice of God, the moment when that voice came, there is a tremendous sense of responsibility. You say, why do you say that? Do you know why I say that? For the simple reason, the moment when God spoke to this man, and the moment when he responded to the voice of God, that moment God said to him, Abram, I want you to listen to Me. I want you to sacrifice to Me. My friends, I want to say to you this afternoon, when it comes to the concept of revival, my brother and sister, there's one word that is so absolutely relevant. It's the word sacrifice in my life as a believer. Do you know what God is going to say to us in this very first step of personal revival? God is going to speak to us about sacrifice. God is going to come, my friends, and He's going to turn our program upside down. He's going to bring adjustments into our relationships with God. He's going to bring revolutions when it comes to my time. He's going to bring me to a place where I would not only analyze time, where I would not only maximize time, but He will bring me to the place where I begin to utilize time as a believer in the presence of God. Can I ask you this afternoon, as we find ourselves involved in these times, my friends, are we open before God? Are you willing this afternoon to say, Lord Jesus, whatever you're going to say to me, in this afternoon's sessions, in these coming days, my heart is absolutely open before God. God said, Abram, it's going to mean sacrifice. Do you know what the Lord said to him? Abram, the altar of God. When God has met with us as His people, it's my reputation as a believer. And when the Spirit of God begins to deal with us, the Spirit of God is dealing with us, my brother and sister, in the most sensitive areas of my relationship with God. Do you know what God sometimes does? And it's amazing. This God that came to Abram is the same God that came to him a number of years before that. It was the God that said to him, Abram, do you see the stars of the sky at night? Do you see the sand on the seashore? God said, Abram, so shall your descendants be. And God gave him a promise. It was the promise that he's going to become the patriarch of the people of Israel. And my brother and sister, in order for God to make that promise real, there was a moment when Isaac was born. And the blessing of God began to rest upon the life of Isaac. And for a number of years, he became the darling of the heart of this man, Abram. And suddenly one morning when God challenged him, do you know what God said to him? God said, Abram, I want you to go and sacrifice your son. I want you to remember this afternoon that this voice that came to this man, Abram, was the voice that came after chapter 17. Do you know what chapter 17 is saying to us? God said to him, Abram, I want you to walk before Me, and thou shalt be perfect. Do you know what that means in the Old Testament concept? God brought Abram to the place of a spiritual life in our sins of the world. And my brother and sister, this was a number of years later when God challenged this man with the whole concept of what it means to know revival. And God said, Abram, I want you to go and sacrifice. Can I ask you this afternoon, is the voice of God coming to you these days? Is God beginning to reveal areas in your life or the place where you come from? And the Lord is beginning to create circumstances in which God is going to make it possible for you to seek the face of God in prayer. And come to the place where you pray through for revival. It was the voice that came. It was the voice that spoke of the concept of sacrifice and the presence of God. Can I ask you, my brother and sister, what is there this afternoon that is very precious to you? Is it maybe your relationship with God? Is it maybe this area of your life or that area of your life? And the Spirit of God is coming and saying, listen, in order for me to visit you with my Spirit, it's simply going to mean I'm going to revolutionize that aspect of your life. You know, we spoke these days about the whole concept of what it means to serve God and brokenness of heart and of life. I will never forget when God began to speak to me about brokenness. It was quite some time after I entered into this wonderful promise of a Spirit-filled life. I knew God had done the work in my life. He brought me to a place of absolute surrender. He cleansed my heart. The Spirit of God who was resident became president in my life. I discovered that the Spirit-filled life was not a goal, but it simply became a gateway. God began to open up these great truths of His Word, and I began to find myself involved in them. And then God began to speak to me one day as I sat under the ministry of the man who knew what it was to serve God with a broken spirit. And God said to me, do you see that man? There is a fragrance about the life of that man. There is a presence. There is an anointing of my Spirit about his life which is so different from the lives of people who have confessed to the experience of a Spirit-filled life. And I began to question this because I said, Lord, surely You meet with me in revival, and that's it. And now I've entered in, and now I began to discover these wonderful things of Your precious Word. And then God was saying to me, now listen, there is a deeper dimension, not another experience, but a deeper dimension in which my Spirit wants to deal with you, and it's in the realm of brokenness of heart and of spirit. I will never forget that day when I listened to this man, and the challenge from the voice of God came to me. My friends, if I'm allowed to say that, the Lord did not convict me of any sin in my heart. My heart was absolutely open, but it was just this sense of the voice of God. I was walking in the light, the voice came, I saw new dimensions, and I had to surrender myself to it. And I began to pray the prayer, Lord Jesus, will You teach me what does it mean to serve God with a broken heart and with a contrite spirit? Do you know what happened my friends? Things that I never expect to happen. Suddenly it came down with a crush upon me. Suddenly God began to break every aspect of my relationship with God. You know, sometimes I think it's quite possible that you and I can sit in a little gathering like this, and if we look back in our relationships with God, we say, well, it's not been so bad. The Lord has been with me, and the Lord has been gracious to me. But my brother and sister, when God begins to deal with us and this whole concept of brokenness, we began to discover areas in our lives that we have never discovered before. God began the process of brokenness. It came down with such a tremendous crush. I remember the moment when God began to work. You know, it almost took me seven months to recover from that. The awesomeness of this revelation. The awesomeness of this broken Lord Jesus. The awesomeness of this attitude of walking in the presence of God with a deep spirit of brokenness. Sometimes people ask us and say, well, when you speak about brokenness, aren't you speaking about the emotional aspect of that? I say, no, that's not what I'm really dealing with. I say, that's maybe 5% of the reality of that. But my brother and sister, 95% of what I believe God is dealing in brokenness is some of the most precious dealings of God within our lives as His people. Let me ask you this afternoon in this meeting, has God began this marvelous work of brokenness in your relationship with the Lord Jesus? You see my friends, there is a fragrance about the Christian life. And don't misunderstand me today, but there are so many of us as God's people. We have known all the wonderful blessings of God. We have known the truths of revival. And yet my brother and sister, we don't know the concept of what it means to sit under this fragrance of the presence of God. You know on the island of Lewis, or rather the island of Skye, about nine years ago, God poured out His Spirit and a very precious movement of the Spirit of God 26 people were converted. There was no special services. People just began to pray in cottage meetings and they read the Word of God, those islanders and the islanders. And the Spirit of God began to move upon the island. I visited that island. In fact, I had the privilege of preaching in the midst of that movement of God's Spirit. What a wonderful time it was just to be there. But you know one of the elders came to me at one of those meetings. He said, Sir, I would like to share something with you. He said, Some time ago I was in a meeting. It was a cottage meeting. You know sometimes they have their meetings and then after the meeting they have what they call a cottage meeting. And there they spent a half night in prayer and singing the Psalms and read the Scripture. In fact, I was at one of those cottage meetings and I was asked to preach at that. And I look out of a window at one point and I couldn't believe it because it was beginning to get light. And I look at my watch. It was between five and six o'clock in the morning. And I turned to these people and I said, I said, You know guys, it's time to go to bed. They said, We go to bed for an hour or so and then we're up for the rest of the day. That's what happened when God sends revival. But you know what this man said? He said, Some time ago I was in a cottage meeting. He's one of the elders in the Church of Scotland. And he said, I came to the place where I read the passage that Charlie was speaking on this morning. And he said, As I began to read that passage, where Mary broke the ointment, he said, suddenly a fragrance came into the room. And I began to question this man. I said, What do you mean? He said, Sir, we could smell the presence of God. He said, There was an aroma. There was a sense of God's presence. He said, For days, we could smell the presence of God. Do you know my heart is in what I would consider biblical theology. And I stood back and I said to myself, Now, what is the Bible saying about this dear brother here? And God just said to me, You just keep quiet here. When I send revival, I work in the way that I want to. Do you know what happened in the island of Lewis, my friends? There was a young man with the name of Mackay. He was resisting the work of the Spirit of God in the midst of a Lewis revival. And Duncan Campbell and the minister was asked to go and speak to him about the Lord Jesus. They went and they spoke to him about the Lord Jesus. Share God's plan of salvation to him. And he resisted. And do you know what he did? He began to drink and he drank away every possible penny that he ever possessed. And in the midst of the revival, one night he was in such a drunken state, he was walking home in that terrible drunken state. And he was so drunk that he fell into one of those ditches and he fell asleep. And he had a dream that night in the midst of the revival. Do you know what he dreamt? In his dream, he dreamt that Duncan Campbell was speaking to him about his relationship with God. Now, my brethren and sisters, don't ask me to explain it. But do you know what happened? In his dream, he trusted the Lord Jesus as his personal Savior. And that young fellow Mackay got up soundly converted. Well, you speak about Calvinism, that's the heart of it they would say to me. But the wonder of the workings of the blessing of God. In fact, let me tell you about this guy. He went to the island of Skye. And for many, many years, he became a faithful minister of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what happened when God sent the revival. And I wonder this afternoon, we're dealing with the concept of responding to the voice of God. My brethren and sisters, to what capacity today are we willing to say, Lord Jesus, will You begin to break me as a believer? Will You begin to bring me to that place where my life is going to become part of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ? Where my life is going to be so broken up in the presence of God, that the only thing that's going to come through my life is going to be something of this marvelous fragrance of the Spirit of God. You know, I was about 17 years old when I fell from a horse in Africa. And I lost about 93% of my smelling abilities. I asked my wife the other day. She was cutting my hair, and she saw this mark on the back of my head. I had a skull fracture. And she said, well, that's what happened. I said, yes. And I said, do you think I've recovered from that? She said, I'm not sure about that. But that's her story anyway. But you know, I lost probably about 93% or 97% of my smelling abilities. And my wife has got a marvelous ability to smell. In fact, if I was in Africa, I would say she's got a nose like an elephant. She can smell marvelously. And you know, whenever I preach, she'd come to me and she'd say to me, now listen, whenever you preach, she said you perspire. And she said, it's always wise in your black briefcase to carry one of these canisters of deodorant. So being a faithful husband, that's exactly what I do. Last year I was speaking in the province of Ontario in an alliance church. And do you know what happened this Sunday night? We had a great meeting. Preach our heart out. And after the end of the service, I pick up my black briefcase and my canister of deodorant was in it. And the top of this thing came off. And I took my Bible and I dumped my Bible in this black briefcase. And I carry my black briefcase back to the door to say goodbye to the people. And I did not realize that my Bible got right landed on the little knob of this canister of deodorant. And I couldn't smell. And there I stood, you know, shaking hands with these people, this alliance minister. You know, you need to be an alliance minister to be so gracious. But he never said a word to me. And I stood there and for about ten minutes, this marvelous fragrance was coming out of my black briefcase. And I was surrounded with people. And no one ever said, you know, Christians are very gracious. No one has ever said a word to me. And everyone got through and the meeting was over. And it was quiet and silent. And boy, suddenly I heard this amazing sound coming out of my black briefcase. I knew I was in trouble. I turned to this guy and I said to him, I said, Elmer, can you smell anything? Ah, indeed he said, I can. I said, well, I guess it's enough for both of us and the rest of the congregation. But I got a marvelous illustration. You see, my brother and sister, listen. When God begins the work of brokenness, there is a fragrance about the brokenness of the Spirit of God. A beautiful fragrance. And do you know what that fragrance does? When God began to bring this brokenness upon us, two things began to take place. And do you know what I discovered? This fragrance of the presence of the Spirit of God, my dear friends, never ever neutralize people. This fragrance of the presence of the Spirit of God does two things to the lives of people. Do you know what the Apostle Paul said? He said to some of those people, we will become the fragrance of death. He said to some of those other people, we will become the fragrance of life. You see what this fragrance does? My brother and sister, it cuts right through into the beings of people. And I wonder this afternoon if you sit here, can you and I say with the honesty of our hearts, that my heart is absolutely open before God. We're only dealing with this first step. Responding to the dealings of God's Spirit in my life. And you know, my friends, God is specific. Do you know what He said? He said, Abram, He said, take your son, your only son that you love, He said, go and sacrifice him at the place which I will tell you of. You see my friends, when God begins to break us by His Spirit, my brother and my sister, there is a moment of God's intervention. There is a moment when the Spirit of God begins to deal with me and brings me to this marvelous place of brokenness in my life. Very briefly, what was the second step? You remember what happened to this man? He began to walk to this mountain that God has showed him of. This marvelous place that some theologians reckon it was the very place where Jesus Himself was crucified for us in the cross. As they were walking, as they were walking, there was a moment when there was another voice coming. It was the voice of His Son. Isaac was very quiet. He saw his father doing all the necessary preparations. He saw his father obeying God, although I don't know if he knew what was happening. And as his father was in the process of obeying God, my brother and my sister, the voice of His Son came and He said, My Father, do you know what Abram did? This is the second year I am. He said, Here am I, My Son. Do you know what the Bible says? This man came to the place where he faced the reality of revival. I wonder this afternoon, where do we find ourselves? Have we gone through the first step? Those first six, seven verses where the voice of God has come? Are we living in the obedience? My brother and sister, are we on this mountain that God has told us of? This place of sacrifice and the presence of God? And as they were walking, the Bible said the voice of the Son came. He said, My Father. And when Abram responded and he said, Here am I, My Son. Do you know what the Bible says? He said, My Father. He said, Here we've got the fire. We've got the wood. We've got all these necessary things. All the necessary things ready for the sacrifice. He said, But My Father, where is the land for the sacrifice? You see my friends, when we are speaking to one another about revival. My brother and sister, there are so many of us as God's people. And I would like to encourage you today because it's so few that I, so few times to have the opportunity to share some of these deep wonderful truths of God. But let me say this to you this afternoon. There are so many of us, we've heard the voice of God. We stopped and we said, Here am I, Lord Jesus. And God has told us to go to this place of sacrifice. And we have done the preparation. And then we began to think, Well, surely this is revival. Because we sense the encouragement of the Spirit of God. But we have never come to the second stage in revival. Where the voice of the Son has come and said, My Father, you've done everything that is absolutely vital. All the preparation ground has been done. All the necessary planning has been done. He said, But My Father, where is the land for the sacrifice? My brother and my sister, have you ever faced up to that reality? Of what it will really cost us to pray through for revival? Do you realize that it can mean this afternoon that God is going to come to our lives in such a way, and claim our lives in such a way, that your whole future is going to be absolutely revolutionized? That your time in the future is going to be... That your prayer life is going to be absolutely revolutionized when it comes to this concept of prayer? I wonder if I may share this with you. You know, one of the people that prayed for me was an elderly lady of about 80 to 83 years old. First day when I met her, I was asked to go and see her. Her name was Auntie Tutti Rousseau. And as a young Christian worker, I stepped into that little room where she was with her daughter. And as I sat at her feet, I knew I was in the presence of someone who knew the secret of intercession. God had spoken to her about revival. She made a commitment to God. And God said to her, Listen, I want you to pray through for revival. And the day when I sat at her feet, her very first question to me was, she said, Young man, do you mean business of God? My heart broke in the presence of God. And I said, In the life that I have, I want to seek the best of God for my life. And do you know, she sat at her prayer table. She had a chair in which she sat. About 12 to 15 hours a day, her daughter would bring her into that chair, and her son made a table that was connected to that chair. And she would swing that table in front of her. And on that table were the names of about 700 people that she prayed for every day. She looked me straight in the eyes and she said, Young man, she said, I want to pray for you. And she wrote my name down. My brother and sister, 12 to 15 hours every day, she spent in intercessory prayer. One day a phone call came to the house. And my superintendent said, You better go and see her because she wants to see you. I step into that room. And she said to me, God has given me a burden to pray for you. I said, But aren't you praying for me every day? Oh yes, she said, I do. But she said, Do you see my table? She said, You have the names of about 200 people. And she said, God has given me a special burden. And I pray for those people. Sometimes I pray for them three times a day. And that day she wrote my name down. And my brother and sister, from that day, I began to experience a change in my whole relationship with God and my whole ministry. Every time when I went to do an evangelistic crusade, I had to call in and I had to see her. And I had to give her the name of the place that I was going to preach. And she would say to me now, Every day I am going to intercede in the presence of God. And then she said, Listen young man, When you come back from that place, She said, I want the names of the people that God has saved. Can you imagine? What if I came back and there were no names? She would look at me and she said, So what were you up to? Were you messing around with God? And my brother and sister, She knew the secret of intercessory prayer. She was 84 or 85 years old. And I came to the place where I heard, or rather I got the message, until Tutti Risso was very ill. She was in hospital. She was dying. I went to that hospital. And I went to her bedside intensive care. And I stood at that bedside. The eyesight was gone. The mind wasn't clear anymore. And I put my hand upon her hand. And she looked up. She couldn't see me. And she said, Who is this? I said, Auntie Tutti. I said, It's that boy. She always used to call me that boy. And before I could say anything else, she said, Let me pray for that boy. And she prayed. Hours later, she was swept into the presence of Jesus. My brother and sister, the day when I stood at her grave site, I wept like a child. Do you know why? There was a cry upon my heart. I said, Lord, who's going to pray for me? Who's going to pray for me? My brother and my sister, listen. We sit here this Wednesday afternoon, or Tuesday, whatever day it is. We sit here. My friends, we are here because someone has prayed for us. Can you see the vision of God in praying through for revival? We pray for our families, you know. My word, I prayed for my family for 12 years. My eldest sister, they were God-fearing Dutch Reformed people, but as unconverted as can come. There they were, I prayed for them. In my prayer book in my quiet time, God gave me promises. And as I prayed for them, I put the promises around their names. And the names that surround were the promises of God. And God answered prayer, my brother and sister, not because we are praying, not because He's obliged to answer our prayers, but my friends, listen, He's answering prayer because He's a covenant-keeping God. And I prayed for her. About six, seven months ago or so, I sat in my study one day and the phone rang. And here is my sister from South Africa. She's the vice-principal of a school and married to a lawyer. She never in her life ever has phoned me. And the phone rang. And I picked up the phone. And I heard this voice and she spoke to me in my native tongue, which is a combination between Dutch and German. And as she spoke to me, I said, Heta, I said, why did you phone me? I said, is there something wrong with dad? No, she said, nothing wrong with dad. I said, is there something wrong with someone in the family? No, she said, there's nothing wrong. I said, my sister, I said, I said, why did you phone me? And I heard the sobbing on the other side of the phone. And she couldn't speak. I said, Heta, what's wrong? She said, I phoned you to tell you that I've got saved. Oh, my friends, I sat there and I couldn't speak to her. I said, eventually I got the word out. I said, sister, I said, tell me why? Why did you phone me? Eventually she came out. She said, I knew you were praying for me. I said to her, what can I do for you? She said, will you pray for me on the telephone? I said, it's going to cost you 50 bucks. She said, it doesn't matter. The blessing of the presence of God. My friends, do we know what it means to pay the price when it comes to prayer? Do we know what it means to pay the price? My time is gone and this little brother is standing here again. If we just... I think we should get him in the prayer room. Can I just finish with this? I really love you. Forgive me for that. Can I just finish with this? You know, when I went to theological school, we had these nights of prayer. I got saved at the end of my first year. And went back to theological school and the president of our school gave me permission to begin with Friday nights of prayer. Oh, wonderful nights of prayer we had. And then there were a few students, you know, we were on fire for God. Oh, and you know, and we believe, well, we can't just pray Friday nights. We also need to pray every other night and pray for revival. We were convinced that God was going to send revival, but God never sent revival because we were expecting Him to work in our terms. And He didn't do it. But there we were, we were praying and four or five of us, and I was praying in the lounge at night and one fellow in the library and another fellow in the men's common room. And one day the matron of the school got up at the lunch meeting and she said, I hear that there are some of these students who are spending nights in prayer on their own. You see, our problem was, we only believe that God could have listened to us if we all pray out loud. And we woke everyone up during the night. Good for them I thought afterwards, but anyway, it didn't work that way. But she said, it's against the rules of the school to spend every night in prayer because otherwise you fast asleep in the lecture room. And I sat and said, what an unspiritual woman, you know. And the Lord had to deal with me. I remember one night she came, we were all, we didn't listen to her, and she came to the library and she chased this guy back to his room. And she went to the men's common room and she chased the other fellow back. And I was in the lounge, I heard her coming and I thought, you're not going to get me. And I ran, jumped up and I ran behind and I hid behind the piano. So she came into the lounge, switched the light on, Gerard wasn't there. She closed the door, switched the light off, closed the door, and locked the door. That night Mother Nature calling and I was in distinctive trouble because I couldn't get out. But you know God did wonderful things our Friday nights of prayer. And I just want to share this with you. You know what happened? We spent one whole night in prayer. And I don't know if you'll appreciate me saying this, but the best times of prayer we had, my brother and sister, was between one o'clock and five o'clock in the morning. Don't ask me to explain to you what happened, but it seems as if a fresh spirit of prayer came upon us and an intercession and a seeking after the face of God and a fragrance and just a desire to pray through the night. Saturday was our off day. A few of our students went to the Cape Town parade to do personal evangelism. One morning we came back, another student and myself, and we were walking on a site on a pavement about a mile and a half from our college in one of the suburbs with the name of Weinberg. And as we were walking, there was a man walking behind us. And when this man was walking behind us, we were discussing the things of God. But you know, the presence of God was so real and so precious and so wonderful. And we were discussing the things of God, and the Spirit of God spoke to this man. We sat at a restaurant, and I said to my friend, we didn't know about him, I said to my friend, let's pop in for a cup of coffee. And we popped in and sat there, and I saw this man standing outside, and I still remember I wonder why this man was standing there. And eventually he came in, and he came to me, and I simply believed, because I was the closest to the passage in this little restaurant. And I said to him, he said, sir, may I see you? And I got out and excused myself. We began to walk on the pavement, and this is what this man said to me. He said, sir, I was walking behind you and your friend. And he said, you were talking about God. And he said, something spoke to my heart. He said, can you tell me what it is? I knew it was the Holy Spirit. And I began to share my testimony with him. And I said, let's go to the library. We went and we sat in the corner of a library. And I took out my little New Testament, and I began to explain to him God's plan of salvation. And that Saturday morning, that big strong man with his nice suit and black briefcase sought his way through to God. I often wonder what the people in the library thought, because this place is stacked, but I had peace with those people. This man got wonderfully through with God.