In this sermon, the preacher shares two stories of revival and emphasizes the power of fasting and prayer. In the first story, a group of men in East Germany wanted to reach the youth but struggled to attract more than five young people to their meetings. However, after fasting and praying for seven days, 65 kids showed up, and over time, they had a thousand kids attending. The second story is about a Baptist church that planned for a revival by holding three prayer meetings a day for two years. As a result, a mighty revival came, and hundreds were converted. The preacher encourages the audience to prioritize prayer and fasting in preparation for revival and shares personal experiences of seeing God move in powerful ways when prayer is prioritized.

I normally, as you know in preaching, I normally use a lot of scripture. I may not do that at the start of this message, more perhaps to the end. Sure, I got these hearing plugs in my ears, you know, and if I use them when I speak, what happens is I hear my voice three times as loud as it really is, and the people can't even hear me, you know. So I got to get rid of these stupid plugs, you know. It's crazy when you pay $6,000 for things that don't work, you know. Yeah. I want to deal with some things today that I think that we, as a fellowship, are partly and maybe in some cases completely overlooking. So listen carefully, okay? I'll be talking about certain people have done certain things. Stoddard was related to Jonathan Edwards pastoring a church in the New England states way back. And he had five revivals in his church in 35 years. And each time the revival came, there would be hundreds of people converted. But this was not happening in other churches. So finally, a bunch of pastors got together, and they had a meeting with Stoddard, and they said, Stoddard, why is God blessing you and not blessing us? Well, he said, God doesn't play favorites. Here's the difference. You guys sit around hoping something will happen. We don't do that. We make it happen. We pray. We fast. We preach for a revival. We believe God for a revival. We persevere until it comes. You guys don't do that. That's important. Calvin Colton, he wrote a book in 1832. I've got a copy of it in a second-hand bookstore, describing revivals in the states in the early 1800s. And one of the things he said was this. Like he said, we were never satisfied with what they called insulated conversions. We would use the term isolated conversions. That was fine. Family, finding Christ, people here and there. That was not revival. He said the same thing as Stoddard said. We prayed for a revival. We fasted for a revival. We preached for a revival. We believed God for a revival. Until, here's what he said, until the Holy Ghost came and took the work out of our hands and made the whole community aware of God, then hundreds were converted. What were these men talking about? We don't see that today. Maybe we're sitting around hoping something will happen, and not really believing God. You know, Ephesians 6.18, that famous verse on praying in the Spirit. It says with all perseverance. One of the things George Miller said was, I never give up. If I start praying for something or for someone, I never, never, ever give up. Perseverance. Maybe we're weak there. I don't know. Sam Tippett, you know, he was once invited to come to a certain church and have revival meetings. Since he wasn't far from home, he went to see the pastor. What's the story? Well, he had 60 people, usually on Sunday, and about 20 attending prayer meeting. And Tippett said, you're not ready for revival. And the guy said, but Sam, he said, listen, we're believing God for revival. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. You should do that. But, you know, I mean, 60 people, 20 in the prayer meeting. It doesn't look to us like you're ready for it. But the guy kept saying, Sam, aren't you listening? We're believing God for revival. And Sam finally was persuaded. Have revival meetings. It erupted into something so big, they had to use an auditorium seating 10,000. The city, when they saw what was happening, they gave this building for as long as they needed. So, okay, I hope you're picking up on something in each one of these stories. You probably are. In East Germany, Tippett was in a number of these countries in Europe when communism was in control and had some marvelous experiences there. He's a real great man of God. And he told about a case in East Germany under communism. East Germany was not like Bulgaria. Bulgaria was called Little Russia, you know. East Germany was fairly easy, and he could, and there's a couple of men trying to reach the youth. And so they would rent a building. They could do that and advertise quietly a little bit, and they could do that. But nothing ever happened. They couldn't get more than five young people, you know, to a meeting. They didn't give up. Here's what they did. They fasted and prayed for seven days. You know what happened? Sixty-five kids showed up at the meeting. They couldn't believe it. And they started doing this not always a whole week, you know, but three days, four days, five days, seven days, wherever. At the end of one year, they had a thousand kids attending. What do you get out of that? What do you see in that? Anything? For today? For us here? We should be. I had a great time down in Argentina some years ago. And some of you know the details of what happened there. Six Baptist groups used to get together once a year for a weekend and compare notes and all this kind. And they'd have a thousand people or more there. And so at this particular time when they did this and compared statistics, they discovered that the average church had only won two people to Christ in the 12-month period. So they said, this is terrible. We need revival. So they set up the conference for the following year. They got the dates. And they had a committee to take care of this. And then they said, don't invite a revival speaker. We're going to pray for God to send us somebody who knows something about revival. Now they didn't know I was coming to South America, and I didn't know a thing about them. I spoke in the Southern Baptist Seminary in Buenos Aires. A professor came running up and he said, Bill, where are you? And he mentioned a certain weekend. I got my book out. In two months, it was the only weekend I had free. Well, I said, I'm free on that weekend. Why? Oh, he said, you must come and speak to this group. They want a revival speaker. Well, we had, you know. I had to speak to an interpreter. You don't have to do that anymore. They've got new ideas. You can speak in English. You can record in Spanish or French or other things. It's a lot different now than it was then. But my interpreter was a real spiritual man. Sometimes jumping off the floor, he got so excited. You know, the building, we were in Rosario. It's the city of a million or more away from Buenos Aires. And the place was not just packed. I mean, people were standing and all the aisles and chairs were people sitting in them. And I couldn't give invitations. So I just made everything as simple and plain as I could. And then at the last meeting, Friday over Sunday, I said, If God has spoken to you and you want to be saved or you're a Christian and you want to be filled with the Spirit, stay behind. And there must have been 500 people stayed behind, you know. And we had quite a time. How do you do it? Well, you do your best and trust God, you know. And out of that, something happened. There was a pastor in those meetings. And God touched him. And he just saw revival. That's what we need. He was from Buenos Aires. He had a Baptist church with 500 members. He went back and he spent, I think, days and nights in prayer. He was a man of great faith. And to illustrate that, I'll say this. He needed a car to get around. He couldn't afford a car. And so he prayed about it. And the Lord told him to go to one of the Ford companies and ask for a free car. He told his deacons, they roared and laughed. What are you, you're stupid. He went and they gave him a brand new New Yorker. Can you believe it? Anyway, he started praying for revival, meaning revival now. After about three weeks, revival broke in his church. It swept the whole church. Everybody was touched. It was a good thing because one of the guys was planning to shoot the preacher. They'd have had a dead pastor. They'd have had a revival. Do you know what happened? Listen, after the church was clean, God saved 200 sinners in two weeks without special meetings or a special speaker or anything. They were coming, beating on his door all the time, line up sometimes, wanting to be saved. So he phoned the previous pastor. He came down to gather in the harvest. 200 sinners saved after the church was right. That's our problem, you know. Our churches are not right. And God knows it. I was in that church a little while later. They baptized 85 of those converts. They had the others in convert classes. And they're really going places for God. You know, Phinney made much of fasting. He said, whenever I sense that the revival fires are burning a little lower, I get some people and we fast and pray until the fire comes back again. We don't know anything about that. But, you know, at least very little. But that's what they did. That's how they handled it. And people out here, I was in a place one time in the states and a guy said to me, Charles Phinney, all his converts are in hell. And I almost said, have you been there to check it out? I didn't say it, but I thought that, you know. And people said all kinds of things against him. You know, none of his converts stood. I think I read everything Phinney ever said, you know. And there was one place he was in. There were 3,000 converts. And years later, the pastor said they didn't know the single backslider. Now that's incredible, you know. Some of the great revivals of the past, they talked about one backslider in 60 converts, that's all. One in 60. When they're converted by God the Holy Ghost, it's a different thing, you know, than they're really. And there's a Spurgeon in his church that often had fasting times. And he said, our fasting times were high days. High days. He meant spiritually, spiritually speaking. And of course, George Miller, as I mentioned already, his great thing was never giving up. Persevering, staying with it. Going after whatever the object is for the glory of God and the good of others. Never give up. Pray night and day. I was recently in a place you've never heard of called Muscle Shoals, Alabama. I don't know how I got down there even. He just asked me to come, you know. Seven elders in the church. It was a large Southern Baptist congregation in a very tiny town. The building was, I don't know, somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000, I suppose. One of the most beautiful and most functional buildings I was ever in. And I was there Friday or Sunday. After I got there, I discovered, I didn't know this before, that I had to speak at 6 o'clock every morning to a bunch of young guys that were training for the ministry. Twenty guys, so every morning at 6 o'clock I had that class. So I spoke nine times instead of three. So that was really a good time. But I mention this because, you know, they had seven elders. And they never did anything unless all seven agreed. One disagreed, they didn't do it. And I talked to them about that, and they said, Well, you know, when we started it wasn't that way. We had dissension and, you know, this kind of stuff in the church. So we stayed with it and we prayed through until we got rid of all that kind of stuff. You know what they told me? They said, we have 1,200 people who are sold out to God, who are soul winning all the time. But it didn't start that way. It came that way through prayer. And, you know, I didn't know they didn't normally give public invitations. I'm quite stupid. I didn't even inquire, you know. But I preached. It was a Saturday night. Well, I must say something before I get to that. Some of the young men from the church took me out to a restaurant. And while we were in the restaurant, the Lord said, I want you to say something to the people in the restaurant. Well, I really didn't want to do this. Well, I had done that before. But anyway, there was about 70 people in the restaurant seat. So I got up and, you know, something happened. My voice was hitting the wall. Something got me, you know. And these people were all listening, you know. And I told them how I had received Christ as my personal Savior. You know what happened? This would never happen in Canada. People began to clap, you know. They were clapping, actually. As I was going out, this little old lady was standing there. And as I went by, she said, Oh, that was wonderful. I said, You were born again? You bet I'm born again, she said. Anyway, God showed me. Because the next meeting I had is where something really happened. And God told me there was a connection between my obedience and His blessing. People are always ears, you know. So I spoke. And I gave an invitation. In a sense, I really didn't say anything. I just said, If God has spoken in your heart, would you like to come forward and talk with God at the altar? I'll do that. So about 40 or 50 people came up to the altar. Then I saw people dropping at their seats and just praying where they were. And after a while, I said, Now, the meeting is to end. If you'd like to leave, just leave. But could a few of you stay and pray for these people at the altar? You know what happened? The whole church stayed. Nobody stirred. And then the people who met with God began to share. And the revival broke and went on until 1 o'clock in the morning. And you know, I was never in a church like that in my life. I don't know how many people were running up saying, So when are you going to move here? I said, Me? Listen, do you know how old I am? People at my age don't move, you know. Oh, you must come. Don Kern, one of our CF workers, he's moved to be part of that church. He's working with that church now. When I flew in there, we were two hours from Muscle Shoals. And a fellow met me from the church. And he was a medical doctor from Missouri. He had just quit his practice and moved to this place to be part of this church. And people were moving from different parts of the states just to be part of this church. Because what God was up to, what he was doing there. And one day God came up to me and said, Hey Bill, you know what? We've got a house for you. I said, What do you mean you've got a house for me? I've got a good house in Montana, you know. But the love that was shown everywhere I went, there was young people, young men especially, crowding around me, hugging me and asking me questions. And I sat at the front seat before going up on the platform, you know. And even until I was going up, there were kids standing and asking me questions about the Lord and the Bible and everything. It's just, you know, it's like heaven in some ways. I'd just stay over the weekend. And they are on the internet, by the way, Sunday morning and Sunday at 6 o'clock, I think, Sunday. Anyway, some of the public heard that time too, you know. And so then they started getting letters from people around the country that had been so blessed by that particular time. The last meeting they had was a communion service. And, you know, they got singing man of solos. What a name. And I couldn't sing. I just sat there and cried, you know. The power of God was so manifest. Two kids in that meeting, two girls, about 16, they each sang a solo. I couldn't believe it. It was just like God was there, you know. And I said, Lord, I wish I'd seen something like this when I started off, not when I'm sort of concluding. But anyway, it was great to see. Great to be a part of. I read about a revival in a Baptist church, I guess it was. So it was an 18-something. They wanted a revival. So you know what they did? They planned for a team to come. No, they didn't. Do you know what they did? They started three prayer meetings a day for two years. Can you believe it? Three prayer meetings a day for two years. So what happened? A mighty revival came and hundreds were converted. People have forgotten that. I ask preachers sometimes, what do you people do by way of preparation for my meetings here? Oh, Brother Bill, we have three extra prayer meetings. You what? And what else? Well, I mean, that's what we did. Three prayer meetings, and you expect revival? Oh, come on, you know. People were dead. We're dead. What's happened in the past? We need to learn from the past. And I know it's hard. One preacher said, every time I fast, I think about the food, you know. I said, yeah. I said, you'd make an excellent archbishop if you served out the arch, you know. He didn't appreciate that. But what are we seeing in our meetings in churches? We are not seeing revival. We are seeing some people revived. And that's good. But we're not seeing churches revived. We should be, but we're not. And I think we have to train churches, train pastors somehow. I don't know how, but somehow, to make them see the cost and the possibilities of revival. We've got to do something about this to people. I mean, God's power is the same as it ever was. Can't we have a crusade in the church and maybe go back three years later again? Don't ever go back the next year because it won't work. They've heard your message before and it doesn't do the second time around. They've all heard this. But maybe three years or four. But whatever, you know. So people, and sometimes many people, but when it's all over, you could not say the church was revived. It wasn't. It slips back into the old ways again, you know. Often times. So what have you picked up out of what I've said? Here's what you should have picked up. Fasting is extremely important. Christ didn't say if you fast. He said when you fast. He spoke as if Christians everywhere, not just preachers, but Christians everywhere, would be fasting at times. And I sometimes ask the congregation, how many of you people fast on a regular basis? Sometimes no hands go up. No hands, you know. You know, again and again, I remember one time in a church in Toronto with Ralph and Lou, and we had a number of speakers there. I think, I'm not sure who all was there. I want to think back now about it. I found a place where nobody could find me, and I fasted and prayed the whole weekend, you know. And that last meeting was in a Sunday afternoon. I don't know what I talked about. It wasn't me anyway. It was God, you know, who came on the scene. Ralph was on the platform when he saw what God was doing among the people. There was no invitation. He saw that God had broken people off in the congregation. They were just sitting there weeping. So he offered them a mic. He said, come, tell us what God did for you. And they were lined up from that room to the moon almost, waiting their turn, standing there weeping. There hadn't been an invitation, you know. So I experiment sometimes. I did that quite recently in Texas with the Rio Grande Bible Institute. About 100 people, some Spanish, some English, and all the way from custodians to professors and all of these things. So 100 people for a weekend. I never gave a single invitation. I normally do, but I didn't. I just preached the truth, that's all. And a man came up one day and he said, I'm 53 or something, he said. I came here with a deep, deep need and a great hope. And he said, God met me. Thank you. He walked away. Before I left the leadership, they said, this is the best conference we've had in six years. I don't mention that for my sake. You know, it was God. We fasted and prayed. And you know, after I got home, the leadership sent me a letter and they said, in assessing the results, it's the best conference we've ever had. And I hadn't even given an invitation. You know, our business is to preach the truth. And God's business is to bless the truth. George Rivers said, and I don't know where he got these statistics from, and I'm not sure they're accurate, but he said, from the experience he had, that of people that go to a counseling room for counseling, only one in ten ever makes any progress in his Christian life. Is that right? I don't know. It shouldn't be. But our business is to preach the truth. Our business is to fast and pray and what else? There's one other thing here. To believe that God's going to do it. People don't. They talk themselves out of it. Well, you know, God's a sovereign God and he only sends revival when he sees it's right, you know, in time and all this. Listen, people, we're living in the age of the Holy Ghost. What was the first revival like, you know? Three thousand converts in one day? And who did that? The Holy Ghost did that. I had some meetings down in Washington with the Alliance congregation, well, Alliance men. There was three or four hundred from a number of churches. And God was working so deeply. And again, fasting and prayer, you know. When it was all over, some men came up and said, Brother Bill, we've been bombed. I said, who bombed you? And they all pointed up, you know. I said, you got it straight. But God only does that when we fast and pray and believe. All things, including revival, whatsoever you shall ask in prayer. Believing, you shall receive. What things shall you desire when you pray? Believe that you have received them and you shall have them. We have all these promises, but we always throw in an if, you know. When Paul prayed for healing, do you suppose he prayed in faith? I'm sure he did. But God said no, and God told him why no. And God will do the same for us. I mean, if he did that for Paul, he'd do the same for us. So pray in faith, believing, and praying for sick people. I remember praying for a lady one time. She was dying of cancer in the hospital. She had a hoop over her body. I knew her well. She was from my church, and I spoke to her. She gave no sign of recognition. She was just moaning. And I went to the throne and prayed for her and turned and walked out. I finally waited two minutes. She was sitting up there hollering for the nurses, you know. And she was healed. She told me afterwards, I heard everything you said. I couldn't respond. She said, because the pain was so bad, I thought I was dying. And then she said, while you were praying, Jesus came through the door and came over and touched my body with his hand. And she said, I thought he was going to take me home to heaven. But he touched my body, and she was healed, you know. Well, I prayed in faith. I didn't sense anything. I didn't feel anything. You know, I didn't have any feeling that she was going to be healed. But I was trusting God she would be healed, you know. That's all in his hand. And I think, I know, somehow people, we've got to get back into this, you know. Fasting, repenting, fasting, believing, and preaching all the truth we know. And God will bring, I'm sure we'll see revival again. I've been praying for years for a nationwide revival in Canada. And I'll keep on praying as long as I'm in this world. I'm sure it's going to happen. I don't know when. I don't care about that. It doesn't matter. It will come. It will come by the grace of God. So it's the age of the Holy Spirit. We're promised in Acts chapter 3 that there will be times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. So when I claim that promise for a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, we have little idea, unless you've done any research. Dr. J. Edmunor, he's written every, if there's been a revival anywhere in the world, he's known about it and he's researched and written books on it. And the 1858 revival in the States is a book which CRF handles. It's called The Event of the Century. And I tell people, if you haven't read that book, you don't know what revival really is. That revival started in Hamilton, Ontario. Not many people know that either, but Edmunor searched that out. It started in Hamilton, where Phoebe Palmer, whose husband was a medical doctor, they were a revival team. They were in Hamilton holding meetings. And the revival book and 400 people were converted in a week. And this guy Lansier in New York heard about it and said, God, do it in New York. And that's how it started, the 1868 revival, which swept the whole of the United States. So exciting reading. You read a bit and you start to cry a little bit. And then you read more and you cry a little more. It's just the way it is, you know. When you read what God did, you know, things like Williamsport, population 866, 820 were converted in the revival, you know. And place after place, close to the whole of the United States, you know. And it wasn't a preaching revival. It was a prayer thing. Remember, they closed the big stores and other stores. They closed their stores at 12 o'clock noon for two hours. So their employees could get to the churches to pray. Because everybody was flocking to the churches. The churches never locked their doors for almost a year. Because people were coming to pray in the churches. And you know, it went like this. A fellow would say, this is my Uncle Sam here. He's not a Christian. Would you please pray for him? And the whole congregation began praying for Sam, you know. He never had a chance. And this is what happened. At the height of that revival, 50,000 converts a week. That's how it happened. Simply through prayer. There was prayer meetings all over the United States of America at that time. People ever were praying for revival. And God answered them. And He did it in a different way. It was the cleanest revival in the history of the church. Nobody was barking like dogs or braying like a donkey or roaring like a lion or any of that stuff. There was nothing of that kind. Nothing at all. Just the Holy Spirit's work in the hearts of the people. And the social effects of that revival were tremendous. For 40 years after that revival, there was all kinds of Christian organizations springing up here and springing up there and sending missionaries and workers around the world. 40 years. And you know, you read in some places during that revival too, there were 20, they called them gog shops, you know, beer parlors. And 19 closed down because they had no business, you know. And one guy, in one place, his was the only shop still open. And Saturday night was his biggest night normally. And he never made enough on Saturday night to pay for the lights, you know. Because God had moved in. And so, I don't know. Do we care? Are we concerned? You say, well, I'm just me. Yeah, you're just me. But maybe you're the one that God wants to get a hold of, to use. There was a great revival among Indian people, you know, up at Norway House in 1920 something, I believe it was. I read a little book about it. It was a powerful, powerful thing. And they said, this was about 20 years later, that the only Indian people walking with God in northern Manitoba were those converted in that revival in 1926 or so. It was a powerful thing. No Indian would smoke tobacco or drink liquor. None of that. Just something God did, you know. And so, whatever, whatever. Your church. You know, we're quite happy. I look around. We've got everything. Right here in Canada, everything. No sad. We're fat and sassy and unconcerned. And we don't really care. I mean, I'm talking about Christians now. That's the way it is. Because nothing is really happening. By way of church revival. It should. God may have to pull the plug on us economically. We may end up with nothing. It would be a good thing if that happens. You know something? It's not a bad thing to be poor. Hawk and my beloved brethren, hasn't God chosen the poor of this world? Rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those that love him. When I started off preaching, my wife and I, they paid us, the church paid us $30 a month. And we had a house to live in. And you couldn't survive on that. You know, the average person with a job in those days was making $100 or $150 a month. And so we just, you know, we just trusted God. One thing we learned was this. You never tell anybody else when you have a need. If they ask, you can tell them. But you don't ever tell them other than that. There's an old saying, if God knows a need, who else needs to know? And we lived on that. But you know, each of us can do our part. We need to get under this burden. I said this I think before, maybe some of you haven't heard it, but there are 75 countries in the world where the average annual income is 5% of what it is in Canada. My son worked in Bangladesh for a family relief program. Their annual income was $85. 150 million people living in Bangladesh. Bangladesh wouldn't be any bigger than Saskatchewan. 150 million people. They have 15,000 relief agencies working in Bangladesh. They're not trying to change the system. They can't change the system. They're just trying to keep people alive. 15,000 of them. And you know, and then we complained because the garbage truck was late. You know, in Canada, I mean. And other things. And many of these people are sick. They just pray. They can't reach a doctor. They don't have a telephone. If they had a telephone, the doctor couldn't come. He's too far away and they couldn't afford it. And so they just, they just, I mean Christian people I'm talking about. And they've slept in their homes and on their floors, on their mud floors sometimes and all this kind of thing. And sometimes their home is just a big round thing with a hole in the roof where the smoke goes out from the fire which is burning on the floor here. So the walls are black with smoke. And they live in that, you know. Christian people who love God. And they can't get out of it. And we take everything we have for granted. And many of us don't even tithe, you know. They say, well tithing is Old Testament. Jesus Christ said about the tithe, these you ought to have done. So Christ put a seal on tithing in Matthew 23, 23. So we rob God and breathe in our little prayers and just don't get with it. We're not doing or being what we should do or be. And you may not like what I'm saying but people, it's the way it is. If we don't do it, we're going to lose it. I can see that coming, you know. We've got this terrorist thing. Do you know something? Do you know how they could throw our whole country into total chaos without a bomb? Just by blowing up our power plants in the winter time. What will happen if they did that? And don't forget, they've probably thought about it, you know. What's going to happen? Thousands will starve to death. I mean this can easily happen now. Christ said those days, the last days, would be so bad that if God didn't shorten the days, no flesh would be saved alive. They used to laugh about it when they fought with bows and arrows and even when they fought with rifles and pistols. They don't laugh anymore. With chemical weapons and atomic weapons and other weapons that can wipe out the human race. They know that and someday it could happen. The Lord said it would happen if He didn't shorten the days. So we're in those days, obviously now. And we need to do what we can. The Spirit of God is still here and still wanting to revive the churches. But we have to make some little turn here somehow to start training pastors because, you know, these revivals in the past, listen people, they do not come through preaching. They come through prayer and faith. After the revival breaks, preachers are used, yes. But you know, many of the preachers in those early times of the revivals, they didn't call in teams. Preachers, pastors did it between them. And a pastor would invite a fellow pastor to come and conduct meetings because God had broken in and a great revival was going on. And it was all done in a simple way. And God is like that. Think of Stoddard, Calvin Colton, Sammy Tippett, Sonny and Spurgeon and George Mueller and learn from them. Let's just pray.