In this sermon, the preacher shares a story about a Welsh evangelist who was feeling cold and distant from God in his preaching and personal life. The evangelist decided to spend three hours in prayer in the woods, asking God to break his cold heart and fill him with love for lost souls. After this experience, the evangelist noticed a significant change in his preaching, with the Word of God being attended with power and people being deeply moved. The preacher emphasizes the importance of personal revival and getting connected with Jesus in order to experience true revival in our churches and communities.

Well, it's good to be back with you again today on Eagle's Wings. My, what a blessing it is to be with you. I would like to be with you face-to-face. You know, I really don't care to call up and do business on the phone. I've always rather to do it face-to-face. Are you like that? Well, you say, no, I'd rather do it by phone. Well, whatever your make-up is, I like to walk with Jesus face-to-face. I do that in the Spirit. We walk with Him, being conscious of Him, right with us. Leading, guiding, talking to us, giving us nudges. What a wonderful thing it is to walk by faith. I've been talking with you a little bit about revival. Remember, revival is Jesus again. And today I want to get into some things on the symptoms of revival. Some of the symptoms of revival, and I think this will encourage you. I'm going to take you back and share history with you. I don't know a lot about history. I like history. I probably don't know a lot about history because I forget more than I remember. But history is interesting because it shows us how God has worked in the lives of men. Someone has said that history is His story. His story in the lives of men, and basically that is true. You know, I ended up with you a little bit last week telling you that, and sharing with you how Jonah didn't like Ninevites. And whatever area you have not surrendered, God will bring you to a crisis in that life. And revival is actually God bringing us back to the cross, back to Jesus, back to living by faith, back into His rest. He wants us practically where we are positionally. Positionally, we're in Christ, we're seated at the right hand of the Father, we're with Jesus. But practically, we have to stay there by faith and live in this life. And so if there's somebody you don't love, like Jonah didn't like Ninevites, God's going to bring you face-to-face with that fact. We really don't know how Jonah ended up. He had a pretty rough time. Here you have a great, huge old city that experienced revival, and you've got a prodigal prophet out there pouting under a gourd. God is just loving him out there under that gourd. God loves you. You know, that's all God is, is love. And all He does in relation to us is love. What a terrible thing it would be for you, my friend, to live your life on this earth, and to die, and to go to hell for all eternity, because you would not receive the love of God. God loved you enough to come down and die on the cross for your sins. And the Scripture says that God shed His blood. The Scripture says in 1 Timothy 3.16 that God was manifest in the flesh. When people say, what's God like? Well, look at Jesus. Look at the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's what God's like, because He was God. Even Thomas said, show us the Father. And Thomas said, have I been so long a time with you, Thomas? He that has seen me has seen the Father. Where are you at? Are you there at the point of blessing? Are you under the blessing sprout? Are you walking in the Spirit? Are you walking by flesh? The flesh doesn't profit anything. Matter of fact, the flesh wars against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you will. Everything is spiritual. Everything has a spiritual ramification to it. We're just not here. We're just not blobs. We're created in the image of God. He intends for us to know Him and to love Him and to understand how much He loves us and how much He wants to bless us. And for all eternity, heaven is going to be such a blessing, a wonder. God, the eye had not seen, the ear had not heard the things that God prepared for us. We can't even fathom it. Paul's even seen things and he couldn't even tell us about it. You just can't comprehend it, it's so wonderful. You know, the fruit of the flesh is evidence in the life of a believer in whatever area that is not surrendered to him. In other words, if I get angry, then that area is not surrendered to God. And that area in my life will be flesh, I'll be actually out of control. Being in the flesh is being out of control. You're at the whims of your emotions, you're at the whims of your intellect, you're at the whims of circumstances, you're at the whims of people that come along. But if you're under the control of the Holy Spirit, and God commanded us to be controlled by the Holy Spirit, he says, wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. What is the will of God? He says, be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. You know, if you're filled with the Spirit, the fruit of joy and melody is going to come out of your soul, out of your very being, and people are going to say, what's wrong with him? Why? He's so happy, and his whole life is caving in. And the only answer is, it's Jesus. Oh, man, if Jesus can do that for his life, then what can he do for mine? My life's a wreck. You know, if you're desperate, you turn to Jesus. He can help you. A lot of people turn to church, and they get turned off because they don't get their needs met. And if your church isn't pointing people to Jesus, and people aren't getting saved under your church and your ministry, then you need revival. And if people aren't drawn to your church, the amazing thing about our church is people are continually just coming in, and we're praying, God, bring in the destitute, bring in the lonely, bring in the downhearted, bring in the losers, bring in those that are hungry for God, bring in those that want God, and we have visitors coming all the time. And not only that, but as we go throughout the day, every day, we're telling people about Jesus, and then we even go out on visitation night and tell people about Jesus. Talk about Jesus. He's the only one worthy talking about. Your church ain't worth a flip if you're not talking about Jesus, and if they come there and they can't find Jesus Christ as their Savior, they can't walk under there and be under conviction. By the way, if you have sin in your life, in your church, and it's rampant, there won't be any conviction of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God will be gone. And a lot of our churches, we don't know how bad we need revival. Revival is Jesus again. And we're going through what we call revival season. Well, we're going to have revival meetings April 14th through the 19th. And actually, they're just evangelistic meetings. Revival is when the Holy Spirit does it. And you really can't advertise revival. You can say we're going to have some revival meetings, but revival comes when God is ready to send it and when we're ready to receive it. And what He wants us to do is to get ready for it. Can you right now say, Jesus is my life? Right this moment, Jesus is my life. He's all to me. He's everything. He's breath. He's my joy. He's recreation. He's my work. I go to work. It's Jesus. Ah, Lord, I have a chance to be a light to those around me today. You go on vacation. It's Jesus. Oh, Lord, we're going to go down to Florida or off to Texas or New York. What are you going to show me through this time? Who do you want to lead me to to talk to about you? Every day, it's Jesus. Jesus, you say you're crazy. No, man, this is life. Jesus is life. Paul said, I am crucified. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. The next thing he says, I do not frustrate the grace of God. Many of you are frustrated because you're frustrating the grace of God. You won't let God be God in your life. You're trying to be God on certain days or in certain areas, and He wants to be God every day in every area. What area is it that hasn't gone to the cross? Whatever area it is, He's going to continually be bringing you back to that area. You know, Martha was a performance-oriented woman. And there was Mary and Martha. Jesus came into their home, and because she had been grooved to perform, she couldn't discern when to sit or when to serve. And if you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you'll know when to serve, and then you'll know when to sit. Otherwise, you're going to be confused, going around in circles in the kitchen, rattling pots and pans, trying to get things together, and then you're going to come out and be bitter at your sister and explode at Jesus and say, Why don't you make her come help me? A lot of us are just going in circles. And sad to say, a lot of our churches are going in circles because we're not doing what God wants us to do. And a lot of us don't even know the first thing He wants us to do. Well, Revival will bring you back to the point where you can hear what He wants you to do again. Now, let me give you some symptoms of Revival. I've got a wonderful book by James Stewart called God's New Thing. And I would love to say to all of you, I'd like to send you a free copy. But if you'd like a copy, I'll get you one. And there's another book, Open Windows, that's a tremendous book. These are books on Revival. Tremendous books on Revival. Open Windows and God's New Thing. And then there's a tremendous book on the Holy Spirit, and God has just not let me get into the Holy Spirit. On sharing on that, I've wanted to. What a wonderful thing it is to be able to fellowship with God through the person of the Holy Spirit. But if you'd like one of these books, if you'll write to me and give me a little time, because sometimes I'm here or there, I'll get you one. And if you can help out on the expenses, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, you might have to wait till we get enough to cover it. God might bless them. We might have enough to where we could just do it. But if you would like to have something on Revival that will encourage your heart, I want to be an encouragement to you. I want to be an encouragement to you. I might make you mad. I might make you glad. But I just want to be an encouragement to you. I might make you mad because there might be something I say that stirs you up. If I say something wrong, I expect to hear from you. I know my woodcutter friend will be on the phone after me if I say something wrong or if I don't say it in the Spirit, I expect him to be after me. I appreciate God giving me people that love me enough to confront me. And you and I need each other. We need to be helping one another. But this book is a tremendous book, and I want to just share some things, some symptoms of Revival, some of the features of Revival from this, some of the distinguishing features of a great awakening. And no Revival is really completely identical with any other in every particular. But here's some of the common evidences of Revival, and I just want to share these things with you, maybe share some Scriptures and go through these things and share a little bit of history with you in the remaining time that we have today. Now if I can get back over here in my Bible to some verses that I have, I want to share these with you as we get into the first symptom of Revival. Now listen to this. It's going to be a deep hunger for God. A deep hunger for God. The psalmist said, My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? Psalm 63, verse 1, O God, Thou art my God, early will I seek Thee. My soul thirsteth for Thee. My flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. Psalms 143, verse 6, I stretch forth my hands unto Thee. My soul thirsteth after Thee as a thirsty land. And O Amos, got to throw him in there, Amos 8, verse 11, Behold, the days come, said the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor of thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. A Moravian historian, writing of the days prior to the culminating day of 13th August in 1797, said, A great hunger after the word of God took possession of us, so that we had to have three services every day, five o'clock in the morning, seven-thirty in the morning and nine at night. Everyone desired above everything else that the Holy Spirit might have full control. Self-love and self-will, as well as all disobedience, disappeared, and an overwhelming flood of grace swept us all out into the great ocean of divine love. Have you been there? In 1885, Reverend G. H. Moore pleaded with his congregation to seek after the Lord in a deeper, fuller way, and four men were stirred up to pray. And so what they did is they met regularly on Saturday nights in the old schoolhouse of Kells, seeking the Lord for a fuller manifestation of His power to meet the hunger of their hearts. And that, my friend, was the beginning of a mighty revival that swept all over Ulster. And even John Wesley described a blessed meeting in his journal. He said, Monday, January 1st, 1739, Messrs. Hall, Kinson, Ingram, Whitfield, Hutchins, and my brother Charles were present at our love feast in Gedders Lane with about sixty of our brethren. Now get this, about three in the morning, when's the last time you stayed up to three in the morning with other brothers, praying for a revival, praying for the blessing of God? About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, many fell to the ground. As soon as we recovered a little from the awe and amazement at the presence of His Majesty, we broke out with one voice, we praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord. My friend, one of the symptoms and evidences of a mighty awakening is a deep hunger for God. I don't know about you, but my heart is pained. There's so few, really, that have a deep hunger for God. And if you want evidence of that, you just look at our prayer meetings. Prayer meetings to be the prime time of the church, but it's the slime time for many. I don't want to spend my time there. I've got more important things to do, like watching TV. We don't care for God. We want to give our nod to God on Sunday and then go on the rest of the week and ask, God, bless me in all my luxury, bless me in all my adventures to make money for myself so I can get more things for myself, so I can build me a bigger barn. God will not be mocked. There's a payday coming Sunday. I'll tell you another symptom of revival. That's an agony for souls. When you have this agony, you'll be like Jesus, where you'll stand and you'll look over your Jerusalem and you'll cry out. You'll cry out for that town, for your city, for your loved ones. You'll have that burden and you'll cry out like Jesus when he said, O Jerusalem, thou that stonest the prophets, often he wanted, he said, I'd take you under my wings, but you would not. You would not. Let me read you that. That's Matthew 23, 37, excuse the pardoning, pardon me, the rustling of the leaves here in the mic, but he said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and you would not. Oh, God wants to bless us, but we don't want it. And agony for souls, and agony for souls. That's just an outstanding feature of revival. A young Welsh clergyman, in reading the litany one Sunday morning, came to the words, By thine agony and bloody sweat. He just read those words. And history records that he was seized with great heaviness and agony, and in some manner he shared in the awful sorrow of Gethsemane and Calvary. And that was the beginning of a mighty work of grace that shook the little principality of Wales. And when Daniel Rowlands read these words to his congregation, they were overpowered and felt that they also were in Gethsemane with their Lord. And when Murray McCain came back from the Holy Land, after six months absence from his people in Dundee, he discovered that a greater work of God was going on than ever before through the ministry of William C. Burns, a young man of only 22 years of age, and so great was the agony, get this, on behalf of lost souls in his congregation. And so amazing were the scenes, even till four o'clock in the morning at St. Peter's, that he was asked by the Presbytery of Aberdeen to give a special report of these amazing scenes. It's just people agonizing for lost souls, burdened under the Spirit of God. And you know what? Some of the Presbytery wanted to condemn the work that was going on at St. Peter's in Dundee for its emotional aspect. Here's a part of his answer. By the way, if you get plugged into Jesus and the Holy Spirit is plugged into you and filling you, you're going to get excited. You're going to be burdened for lost souls. If you're not burdened, you're not going to pray for them. If you're not burdened, you're not going to talk to them. And I'm sharing these things with you as symptoms of revival to show you that maybe you don't even have the symptoms. You know, if your vital signs aren't working, you don't have any heartbeat, brain, wavelength, lungs not working, you're in trouble. You're really sick. Either you're dead. I don't know where you're at. You're either sick, dead, or alive. One of those. Where you at? But anyway, here's a part of his answer. He said, every since my return I have frequently seen the preaching of the Word attended with so much power and eternal things brought so near that the feelings of the people could not be restrained. I have observed at such times an awful and breathless stillness pervading the assembly and each hear bent forward in the posture of rapt attention. Serious men covered their faces to pray that the arrows of the King of Zion might be sent home with power to the hearts of sinners. He said sometimes, as James Stewart said this in his book, sometimes in my meetings in Europe, the choirs have not been able to sing the closing invitation song because they were so broken down in agony for souls. Choir leader, when's the last time your choir was like that? Or is it everybody rushing back to hang up your robe so you can get out and be the first one to the parking lot to be the first one to the chicken joint? More interested in dinner than souls. Not caring that somebody came to our church today and left unsaved. Are we in tune with God at all is my question. Are you in tune with the Spirit of God, what the Spirit of God is saying? Let me share another symptom with you, a third one. And that is to be filled with the love of Christ. To be filled with the love of Christ. The fruit of the Spirit is love. You know what makes love work? It's faith. Galatians 5, 6 says faith, which works by love. They go together. If you don't have love for people, then you don't have faith. If you don't have faith, then your love for Jesus is going away. Faith which works by love. Jude 21 says keep yourselves in the love of God. Now a visitor from England visited Christmas Evans in Wales and he'd heard a lot about him and with whom he was very displeased because of his disorderly meetings. Christmas Evans had these meetings and he didn't think they should be going on the way they were. And so the Englishman got up and he preached. And he preached very coldly, history tells us. And he was fully determined not to countenance any of the wild notions of the Welsh. And when he had finished, oh Christmas Evans, he got up and out of respect to the brother from England, he tried to speak a little broken English as well as he could. But while he was describing the glory of Christ, talking about the glory of Christ and how wonderful Jesus was, the greatness of his sufferings and the infinite merits of his sacrifice in a most powerful manner, you know what the old Englishman did? He forgot himself and he jumped up and he cried out with all his might, oh my God, is this my Savior? And he fell down on the floor doing the very thing that he had condemned others of doing. Well he was so cold and dead because he hadn't been plugged in with Jesus. But once he got plugged in with Jesus, he got a little excited too. And maybe that's what we need to get plugged in with Jesus and that's what revival is. And one of the evidences is love. Now this was just a natural sequence of experiences known by the Welsh preachers at that time. And while riding on horseback to a preaching engagement over the hills, one evangelist, he was very weary and he was very cold of heart in the pulpit. And so in secret prayer, he also came to realize that he was just cold there. He was cold in every area. In his studying he was cold. So as he was riding along, he dismounted from his horse, he went out into the woods and he spent three hours in the woods crying to God to break his cold heart and to fill him with a burning love for lost souls. And he said, having begun, in the name of Jesus, I soon felt as it were the fetters loosening and the old hardness of heart softening. And I thought, mountains of frost and snow dissolving and melting within me. And there stood over me a sweet sense of his forgiving love. As the sun was westerning, I went back to my appointment, and on the following day I preached with such power to a vast concourse of people gathered on the hillside that a revival broke out that day and it spread through the whole principality. My friend, revival will come when you and I get on our faces before God and say, God, I am cold. I am dead. I am backslidden. The problem in my church is me. The problem is me. Will not thou revive me again? In a remote village, in a little town, at a meeting, a young girl who was naturally shy, she stood up and with trembling lips, she cried fervently in the old Welsh language, I love Jesus Christ with all my heart. And many deeply spiritual historians believe that this was the beginning of the Welsh revival of 1904, a mighty revival. And the evangelist James Stewart had said, I remember when expounding the glories of Christ from Ephesians to a group of young converts in Hungary, that the Holy Spirit so bathed us all in Calvary love that I could not finish the message but simply wept with the congregation in sheer joy. When was the last time that happened in your church? It's no wonder that one of the favorite hymns in the Welsh revival of 1904 was, Wondrous love, unbounded mercy, vast as oceans in their flood, Jesus, Prince of Life is dying, life for us is in His blood. Oh, what heart can ever forget Him, who can cease His praise to sing? Wondrous love, forever cherished, while the heavens with music ring. The love being filled with the love of Christ is one of the symptoms of revival. Have you been there? Have you been there? Have you experienced that type of love? What's God want to do in your life? What is God telling you? Is He convicting you of something? Then do something about it. Oh, how we need revival. These are three of the symptoms of revival, being filled with the love of Christ, having an agony for souls and a deep hunger for God. Are you on the verge of revival? Are you so far away you don't even know what the goal is? Start praying for God to do a work and start revival, and ask Him to start in your heart. Well, until next time, I trust that God will bless you, and remember, the Lord Jesus Christ is all you need, but is He all you want? God bless you.