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Promises Regarding Revival - Part 1
Bill McLeod

Wilbert “Bill” Laing McLeod (1919 - 2012). Canadian Baptist pastor and revivalist born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Converted at 22 in 1941, he left a sales career to enter ministry, studying at Manitoba Baptist Bible Institute. Ordained in 1946, he pastored in Rosthern, Saskatchewan, and served as a circuit preacher in Strathclair, Shoal Lake, and Birtle. From 1962 to 1981, he led Ebenezer Baptist Church in Saskatoon, growing it from 175 to over 1,000 members. Central to the 1971 Canadian Revival, sparked by the Sutera Twins’ crusade, his emphasis on prayer and repentance drew thousands across denominations, lasting seven weeks. McLeod authored When Revival Came to Canada and recorded numerous sermons, praised by figures like Paul Washer. Married to Barbara Robinson for over 70 years, they had five children: Judith, Lois, Joanna, Timothy, and Naomi. His ministry, focused on scriptural fidelity and revival, impacted Canada and beyond through radio and conferences.
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Sermon Summary
In this sermon, the speaker shares a powerful testimony of a man who had a life-changing encounter with God. The man was drinking when he suddenly felt a strange feeling that he would never drink again. This led to a powerful moment of repentance and prayer, with 85 children joining in. The speaker emphasizes the importance of having clean hands and a pure heart, as the pure in heart are blessed and able to see God in ways others cannot. The antidote for unbelief is found in the word of God, which builds faith. The speaker encourages listeners to trust in God, even in financial difficulties, as God has a way of providing and taking care of His people. The sermon also highlights the importance of honoring God and being willing to die to oneself in order to experience transformation in one's life. The speaker shares a personal story of someone who was miraculously spared from going to jail, illustrating God's ability to intervene in difficult situations. The sermon concludes with a reminder that Jesus, despite being the Son of God, could not perform mighty works in his hometown due to the people's unbelief. The speaker encourages listeners to be willing vessels for God's work and to trust in His power.
Sermon Transcription
Promises, are there promises regarding revival in the Bible? I think there are. I want to share some that I think, and you have to decide whether you agree with it or not. Psalm 68 and 9. Thou, O God, did send a plentiful rain, whereby you confirmed your inheritance when it was weary. What's he talking about? I think revival. He confirmed his inheritance when it was weary by sending a big rain, a plentiful rain. And God has done that, we know, in the history of the Church many, many times. Psalm 102, there's a verse, you know, in the New Testament the Zion is a people of God. It says so in Hebrews chapter 12, you are come unto Mount Sinai, to the city of the living God, to heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly in the church of the firstborn, who are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all. The New Testament Zion is a people of God, and frequently in the Old Testament the word Zion means that, the people of God. Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion, for the time to favor her, yes, the set time is come. What does God set time for favoring and blessing his people with revival? It goes on to say, For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favor the dust thereof. When the dust and the stones of the heavenly Zion mean more to the people of God than the gold and silver of the earthly kingdom, God will send revival. The 1858 revival was preceded by a great crash in the market. The market was going no place. Actually, but the revival started prayer-wise before that happened. And secular historians, they figured the revival came because everything crashed, you know. It was not that at all. It was part of it. It was certainly not the whole thing, because all over America revival pyramids have been springing up before there was a crash in the market. Anyway, Thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favor the dust thereof. And God says, That's a time for blessing. OK? And then Psalm 102's a verse that says, When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory. That's telling me that he's going to come back at a time of worldwide revival. That's what it looks like to me. You don't have to agree. OK. Pardon me? The verse? It's 102, verse, let's see, 15, I think it is. No, 16. Psalm 119, 126. It is time for thee, Lord, to work. For they have made void your law. Wouldn't that apply today? Isn't it time for God to work? Have you ever prayed that prayer? I've prayed it many times. Do you know what I get back from God? Hey, Lord, it's time for you to work. And he comes back at me with Romans 13, knowing the time that now it's high time to awake out of sleep. So I'm calling on God to waken up, and he's calling, he tells me it's high time for me to waken up. For now is our salvation here, the one we believe, the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, let us put on the armor of light, let us walk honestly as in the day, not in writhing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and loose living. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the luster of. So when I say to God, Lord, it's time for you to work, he said it's time for you to wake up, and put on Christ, and make no provision for the flesh. Galatians 5.24 says, They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the passions and lusts. Have we done that? I know we can't do it ourselves, but by the grace of God we can be willing for God to do that for us and in us. And we've seen people's lives literally transformed when they came to the place where they were willing to die for themselves, totally. You know, Prem Hyde was asked one time to speak at a Deeper Life conference at Keswick in England, and that's the mother of all the Deeper Life conferences around the world, and they didn't know. He was a very slow speaker. It took him ten minutes to get warmed up. And so he got speaking in his slow, methodical way, and the crowd got restless, and finally a lady got up and announced a hymn, and they sang him down, and he never spoke again. Now how would you feel if that happened to you? Could your wife live with you? What happened to him? A friend ran up to him after and said, Oh, Prem Hyde, that was an awful thing he did. And he smiled ever so sweetly and said, It is the Lord. Let him do his thing that's been good. He was dead to self, you see, by the grace of God. And so, I remember one time the Lord asked me, I didn't hear a voice in the hospital, but an impression, and would you mind if somebody else got credit for something you did? Well, the flesh would like him, but that's okay by me. And a couple of days later I'm in the home, and they got talking about a family I'd led to Christ, and said it was really wonderful how Willie Broome led those people to the Lord. And I looked up and I said, You rascal. I mean, I said this to God, you know, to see. I saw that he was up to what he was doing, you know. So, if you say you're willing to do a certain thing, watch out. It'll happen for sure, you know. The Lord, he's got a real sense of humor. He must have. Okay, it's high time for us to wake up asleep and put on Christ. Somebody said, Immerse yourself in Christ. You know, people used to come, Christian workers used to come and spend a day with Charles Spurgeon. They said it kept them going for 12 months, just one day with Spurgeon. They said, He's all Christ. All he can talk about is Christ. And one Christian worker, after spending some hours with Spurgeon, he said to his friends, I don't understand the man. He's cradled by the Holy Ghost. Quite a way of putting it. Cradled by the Holy Ghost. So, immerse yourself in Christ. Christ is all and in all. Colossians 311 says, I remember God gave me three messages on that one time. I preached in a certain church I was in, and the blessing of God just fell on the people. Christ is all. He's everything. Is he everything to us? Can we be satisfied with Christ alone? It says in Hebrews 11, some people through faith, they escape the edge of the sword. In the same chapter later on it says that through faith they died by the sword. Right? So Elijah was carried to heaven and the world in a chariot of fire, and Elijah died of a sickness he had. So God's in control of all of this, and we have to recognize that. OK. Isaiah 57, 15. Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity whose name is Holy. If you ask, suppose you say to God, Hey God, I'd like to write you a letter. Give me your address. He says, Well, I live in eternity. You live where? I live in eternity. You live in eternity. Doesn't make sense, does it? Well, what's your name so I can get the right name on the envelope? My name is Holy. Well, that's not the right answer either, you know. Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity whose name is Holy. What are you doing up there? I dwell to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Listen, if that's why he's dwelling in this high and lofty place, why is it so hard to get revived? It's not on his side. It's on our side. We're just not meeting the conditions that God has laid out in the Bible so clearly. We all know, of course, Joel chapter 2, that God said he was going to pour out his Spirit on all flesh, Jew and Gentile, men and women, young and old. That happened on the day of Pentecost, and it's never quit. It's been going on ever since. The Spirit is still here. Therefore, revival is always possible. And there's a human element that we kept, I think, and we keep overlooking. I want to talk about that just a little later on. God's Spirit poured out on all flesh. I remember a fellow came to me one time, and he said, You know, I don't like you guys, you revival guys. You're always talking about being filled with the Spirit. Nobody in the New Testament ever said, I am filled with the Holy Spirit. I said, Micah said, Truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord and of judgment and of might to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. And I said, Surely if Micah could say that before Pentecost, we can say it after Pentecost. And he had nothing more to say, anyway. Not when I was around. Zechariah 10, it's a prayer. Ask you of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain, so the Lord shall make bright clouds and give them showers of rain to every one grass and field. So do you have a luscious crop of grass in the field of your life? If not, then Zechariah 10 is for you. Ask you of the Lord rain. He's the one that brings the rain, that sends the rain. We can't. There can be a channel, and that's all. Then in Acts 3, 19, Repent you therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. When the times are refreshed, you shall come from the presence of the Lord, and He will send Jesus Christ, who before was preached unto you, whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things. So he's saying, Repent, be converted, your sins will be blotted out, there'll be times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, and then He'll send Jesus back. So it's an age of revival. Do you know that it's a Muslim country, and there is some Christian work going on anywhere. I read a report the other day, Algeria. And the rice said we have revival. One of our churches recently baptized 60 people. We have revival in a Muslim country like Algeria. So it's happening there. Why can't it happen here? It can happen anywhere. God is no respecter of persons. God is no respecter of countries either. But He's looking. To this man He said, well, I look. Remember Isaiah 66? The heaven is my throne, the earth is my footstool. You know, if God should walk to the Pacific Ocean, He wouldn't get wet up to His ankles. You know. The heaven is His throne, the earth is His footstool. So let me ask you this question. Where is the house that you built up to me? Israel has forgotten His maker, and He builds temples. There are lots of them in North America, beautiful things costing 3 million, 5 million. I saw one building, it cost 35 million dollars, and they couldn't pay for it, and they were losing it. I'm not surprised. But here's what He said in that same context. After asking the question, where is the house that you built up to me? He said, to this will I look. The word man is not in the Hebrew. To this will I look. To Him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and that trembles at my word. Don't you qualify? Don't God look on you and revive your heart? Do you qualify? Poor in spirit, contrite, repentant, humble. Here's where I look, God said, not at your big building. Okay. Now does the place of faith, does faith have anything to do with bringing revival? I think it does have. Stoddard was related to Jonathan Edward, and he was a pastor in the New England states, and he had in his church five revivals in 35 years. About every seven years another revival would come, and sometimes hundreds were converted. This was not happening in other churches. Finally a bunch of pastors got together, had a meeting with Stoddard, and said, Stoddard, obviously you've got some secret here. Why is God blessing you and not blessing us? And basically this is what he told them. He said, you don't have it right. God isn't blessing us because we're any better than you. But we happen to know there's a human element in revival. So here's what we do. Now he says, you guys sit around hoping God will send revival. That's as far as it ever goes. We don't do that. We preach for revival, we fast for revival, we pray for revival, we believe God for revival, and it keeps coming. That's a human element. Humans are. But a lot of people don't believe that. You have to sit and wait until God does it. We give God all the glory no matter how it comes. Now that's what Stoddard said. In the 1800s there was an American pastor called Calvin Colton, and he wrote a book called A History of American Revivals of Religion. I understand it's been reprinted recently. I got an old copy in the bookstore, printed in 1832. I got it for 25 cents. It's just falling apart. But it's a great book. I've gone through it several times. And this one thing he made so clear. He said, we were never satisfied with what he called insulated conversions. We would use the word isolated. Twos and threes and this kind of thing. We were never satisfied with that. He said we kept fasting and praying and crying to God until the Holy Ghost came and took the work out of our hands, made the whole community aware of God, and then hundreds were converted and sometimes thousands found Christ. And then he said this. This revival, this kind of revival, never came, never came, listen, never came to a church that did not believe it would come. And it never failed to come to a church that believed it would come. Do you believe it? I believe it. There's a human element here. To God be all the glory. That's why God said when I say to him, Lord, it's time for you to work. And he says, it's high time for you to wake up and start walking honestly and put on Christ, make no provision for the flesh. That's his answer to me and to us, I think, as a Christian. I had a pastor friend. The first church ever a pastor was in Nevada somewhere, not Nevada finally, in South Dakota. And he said there was huge ranches. And so a lot of the ranches had little airplanes. They were flying around from place to place. Rather than driving the car to the laundry room, most of them all had little airplanes. And he said, I had a little building out in the country, and we had about 30 members. And I thought to myself, what can ever happen here? He kept praying about it. And God led him, and he got a map. He did tell me how many counties this took in around his church, but I forget now. And he read pencil this certain area, and he said, Now, Lord, I understand this is my area of responsibility, and I am looking to you for revival. So once a day he put his hands on the map and prayed, God, send revival. And two years later it happened, and 70 people were crowded, 70 were converted in the work of God. People were coming from miles around, 50, 60, 80, 90 miles away, just to see what God was doing. But he laid his hands on a map and claimed it for God. OK. The place of faith. Preparation, Isaiah 43, Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Now how do we do that? How do we prepare the way of the Lord? Well, in the Hebrides' awakening there were three men who met once a week Thursday nights, and they prayed all Thursday night in the barn, aloft of the barn. They'd been doing this, I think, was it eight months or something, and nothing had happened. And one night when they were praying about two in the morning, God spoke to one of the men, and he said to his brothers, Brethren, listen to this. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. He said, Brethren, do we have clean hands and a pure heart? If we don't have, our praying is humbug. And they all fell on their faces in the straw there and began to pray for clean hands and a pure heart. And while they were praying, God wakened the whole community up and down the valley. In the middle of the night, lights were coming on in every home finally, and people were tumbling out of bed, falling on their knees, and praying. There was a human armament preparing the way of the Lord. That revival was so powerful, there was one case where there was a bunch of kids dancing, 85 or so of them, and the band wasn't playing for a little bit, so the guys were in one side, girls in the other, all drinking liquor and stuff, and one guy was drinking, and suddenly he said, Men, I have a very strange feeling that after tonight we won't be drinking again. And then his bottle fell on the floor, and he started to cry and fell on his knees, and in five minutes, 85 kids were on their knees, crying to God, you know. No preacher at all. But you see, in the Hebrides, in every home, converted and unconverted alike, they have Bible reading prayer three times a day, all year round. Breakfast, dinner, supper, Bible reading prayer. Everybody knew what the Bible said. They didn't need a preacher. They knew what the Bible said. Okay, so, Brethren, have we clean hands and a pure heart? Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. They see God in ways that others never see Him. Then in Isaiah 62, 10, it says, Prepare ye the way of the people. That's holy meetings in New York and Saskatchewan, and people were meeting with God, and a little thing was going on there, and then the people were going to the pastor and asking the pastor to forgive them because they had such a bad attitude towards him. And it finally dawned on him that there must be something wrong with him, that everybody was coming and asking forgiveness for the bad attitude they had. And so he asked the Lord about it, and God showed him. And one night he went to the pulpit. I'll never forget that. I mean, he cried for about ten minutes, you know. He tried to speak, and he'd say a few words and cry some more, and he kept on and on. Then he told us what God had told him. He said, God showed me I'm the proudest man in Canada. I never knew that. He said, I see it now. I'm a rotten character. But he said, and he just begged forgiveness, you know. And when he got right, the church was mightily moved by God, you know. And sometimes it's the pastor that stands in the way. I remember during the revival in Saskatoon, it went to a certain point, and then I said to my people one Sunday morning, I said, You know, you people are more honest than your pastor is. And I had to get honest with my people, too. Prepare the way of the Lord, prepare the way of the people, make things right, do what God is asking you, no matter how costly it might seem to be. And we've seen people do some amazing things in the area of restitution. Even facing like one guy, he had a friend who was a judge. And he asked him, he told him what he'd been doing, and he said, Now, I'm thinking of turning over to the police. What am I looking at? He said, You're looking at a minimum of 12 years in jail. Well, he did it anyway. And he didn't spend a day in jail. God took care of that. Now, God might have sent him to jail. I'm not saying that wouldn't happen, because Paul wound up in jail at least once, and probably more than that. But God has a wonderful way of taking care of us. He said, Those that honor me, I will honor. For those that despise me will be lightly esteemed. Okay. Prepare him. The deadly nature of unbelief. He, Christ, the Son of God, the Creator of the universe, could do no mighty works because of their unbelief. How can that be? That's how it is. That's how it was. In the hometown, he couldn't do a thing. He had a few sick folk who said it's all he could do. They did much more. He did much more in Capernaum, but not in the town Nazareth where he was raised, because of their unbelief. So Hebrews 3.13 says, Take heed, therefore, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief and departed from the living God. And here's a remedy for that. But exhort one another daily what is called today, lest any of you be hardened to the deceitfulness of sin. We're told there in Hebrews 3, we're told this again in Hebrews 10, we're to provoke one another and to love unto good works. We know how to provoke one another in other ways. Let's do it in a good way. Provoke one another to love and to good works. And not forsaking and assembling ourselves together as a matter of some years, but exhorting one another. OK, I sometimes ask congregations, How many of you Christians have exhorted another Christian in the last year? How many hands do you think go up? The preacher's hand usually goes up, and that's about it. Maybe one or two deacons' hands go up. But the Bible says that all of us should be exhorting one another daily. I mentioned Cecil Carter the other day, and I mentioned the fact that he was a runner. He took top honors in British Columbia two years in a row for running the mile. And a guy from his assembly backslid, and backslid terribly. And Cecil went looking for him. And he'd ring the doorbell, and his wife might come, and she'd say he's not home. When he knew he was home, because he'd seen him go in the house, you know, this kind of stuff. They'd try and phone him, and he wouldn't answer him on the phone. And he just kept pursuing him. And one day he saw him on the street. And he saw Cecil coming. He didn't have a chance. And Cecil caught him, you know. And the guy cursed at him. He said, leave me alone. And Cecil says, I said, my dear brother, we've missed you so greatly. And the guy flew into Cecil's arms and whipped on his shoulder and came back to God. That's how we're supposed to handle it. That's not how we do it. If somebody backslides, we say, oh yeah, when I heard their testimony, I knew the bell was cracked, you know. And I knew it wasn't genuine. That's how we handle it. That's not the way we should handle it. You know, Bellow, the singing postman, he had such a tender heart. You know what happened one time? A preacher, he lived in St. Louis, Missouri, and a preacher in another city had fallen terribly in immorality. And he heard about it, and he said to his wife one day, you know, honey, I bet that man's hurting. I'm going to go and see him. Now he didn't know him. He drives to this other city, finds it where the guy lives, calls to the house, and she says, well, he doesn't want to see anybody. Well, he said, I won't stay long. I just want to encourage him. And finally she let him in, and she said, now he's in that room just down the hall, first door to the right. And so he didn't even knock at the door. He just walked in. The guy was kneeling at the bed, weeping his heart out. And Bellow knelt beside him, put his arm around him, and said, my brother, I love you. He said, the guy turned and almost choked him with his arms, and bawled and bawled. And he kept saying, I don't think anybody cared. I didn't think anybody cared. That's one of the problems we have. We don't have the heart of Jesus. We have a carnal heart, you know. And we put people down. When they're down, we put them a little further down. We don't know how to do this. Exhort one another daily, daily, lest, lest any of you be hardened through the sequence of sin. As Christians, we live in a sinful world. We know that. We can't get away from that. We're being tempted all the time. And we need each other, you know. I'll never forget one time a fellow called. He was backslidden, a friend of mine. Matter of fact, I stood up at his wedding. But he came, and he seemed to be restorative. I mean, he was talking about the Lord a little bit, and I didn't bother inquiring. And when he was leaving, he said, Brother Bill, you failed me tonight. I said, oh, how did I do that? He said, well, you know I'm backslidden, and I came here hoping you'd talk to me. And I hadn't. How do you think I felt? I didn't know. But I should have known. I should have inquired. Don't take things for granted, you know. My dear brother, how are you doing spiritually? It's been so easy to say that, and then go on from there. And so God is expecting that of all of us, not just the pastors. Exhort one another daily, daily, lest, I say, any of you be hardened through the sequence of sin. And then Hebrews chapter 10 as well. Okay. The deadliness of unbelief. Samaria was in a famine because they were surrounded by the Syrians, and people couldn't get any food, and they were running out of food. And they started practicing cannibalism. Women were eating their own children. And Elijah was the prophet, and God gave him a vision, and he told the people one day, tomorrow by this time there'll be all the food to eat we need. That's not exactly what he said, but he even told them how much it would cost to buy barley and flour and stuff. And there's a guy standing there, a man in whom the king leaned, and he just snorted and said, No, if the Lord would make wonders in heaven, this thing might be. And the prophet said, You'll see it with your eyes, but you'll never partake of it. And what happened was, this is really an interesting story, you know, because the Syrians, they were in their tents, you know, and one night, by sound effects, they heard a tremendous army coming, chariots and horses, and it sounded like thousands were coming in chariots. Nobody was coming, just the sound effect that God gave them, and they ran for their life down to the Jordan. And so when these four lepers came, they were outside the city there of Samaria, but they came to the tents of the Syrians, and there was nothing there. They had a great time feasting, and then they came back and told about it in the city. And they appointed this guy who, you know, who snorted at the idea of God ending this famine, their king appointed him to look after the gate as people were streaming out to get the food in the Syrians' tents, and the people trod upon him in the gate, and he died. He sought, but he never experienced it. God doesn't like unbelief. He hates it. It hurts His work everywhere. A pastor can have a wonderful vision from God, and the church can shoot him down, or maybe a couple of individuals can shoot him down. A friend of mine was in a church in Ontario. He'd only been there a year and a half. I was in the Syrian holidays. I went to see him. Oh, he said, I'm just resigning. I said, You're resigning? You've been here a year and a half? What's going on? Well, there was a guy who used to be in the Canadian Army. He was a major in the Canadian Army, and he was a member of the church, and he thought he was a major in the church, too. He said, Everything I protest, he just goes against it no matter what I try. He shoots everything down, and he doesn't get his way. He hollers and shouts and stamps and beats and sits on the table and everything, makes a great big fuss, and people go home crying. He said, We can't get anywhere. I said, Why don't you discipline him? He said, On what grounds? He's a railer. Railers are mentioned. You're supposed to discipline railers. I don't know that, he said. I'll take care of it right away. And he did. And he wanted me in the meeting when he took care of this, so I was there with my wife. And then this guy, this major's son said, What are the McLeods doing here? This meeting was called for members only. I said, I'm sorry, I didn't know that. I will excuse myself and send my wife to my left. We went downstairs. We still heard the sound effects. When he got going, I mean, the floor, the whole building was shaking. You could hear him shouting and hollering and screaming and everything, you know. But they put him out. And you know what happened? That church went from about 40 to 400 in a short period of time, you know. He was standing in the way. There's ways of dealing with this. A railer, or whatever else. Okay. The ten spies, there were two spies that said, We are well able. And the other guy said, We're not able. Do you remember what Caleb said about the Canaanites? He said, They are bread for us. In other words, we're going to eat them up. Let's go. But the ten prevailed. And then what happened? The nation wandered for 40 years in the wilderness. Forty years wandering in a waste, howling wilderness, a place of snake bits and scorpions and all this kind of garbage. Just because some men were full of unbelief. The antidote for unbelief is the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. God said it. I believe it. And that settles it. We said that before. We'll say it again. The promises of God exceeding great and precious, Peter said. And so they are. Prove God if you never have. Thank God if you get into a financial problem. Thank God for that. Watch God get you out as you trust Him. But trust God. You can't get into, unless you're stupid and do something sinful, you can't get into a financial situation that God can't get you out of. He knows how. And sometimes we get out of a bad financial situation by giving a little extra commissions, you know. I mentioned that before, how life action operates on that principle. And God has honored them for it again and again. Zacharias, when the angel appeared to him in the temple and told him this astonishing news, that he and his wife were going to have a child, his name would be John, he'd be filled with the Holy Ghost from the time he was born, and he would turn the heart of the fathers of the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. And Zacharias just flaked out. How can this be? Look at me, I'm so old and my wife. How can this be? Now wait a minute. He was inexcusable because he had the story of Abraham. He should have remembered, well this happened to Abraham, why couldn't it have happened to him? And so what happened? He was struck deaf and dumb. Not just dumb, but deaf and dumb through the whole account. That's what happened for nine months because of his unbelief. And all through Scripture God is trying to help us as believers understand that unbelief is a very, very evil, hurtful, Satan glorifying deal. Don't get involved in that. Get to know the Bible well and the promises well, and learn how to stand on them to encourage others. I don't preach myself, but I try and study twelve chapters of the New Testament every day. Six chapters from the Old Testament, six chapters from the New. I've written up my own copy of the New Testament, and also I've done the book of Isaiah and some of the minor prophets and the Psalms and Proverbs, and eventually I expect to get the whole thing done. I find that in writing out your own copy of the Bible, you have to know exactly what it says. You can't miss anything. And it just passes it in your mind. You know, I find it a great help. I did it because in Leviticus 17, the kings of Israel were to handwrite, were to write a copy of the Law of Moses. And the Law of Moses is almost as long as the New Testament is. That's what got me going. If those guys had to do it, they had to write it. They didn't have typewriters in those days, certainly no computers, so it was a hard deal. They had to write it all out. So if they could do it, I can certainly do it with a computer, you know. And so, it's been a blessing. I'm still at it. And I have a friend, he's a professor of music in a college, a great Christian guy, and the best pianist I've ever heard anywhere. And he heard me say something about writing out my own copy of the Bible. And so he started doing it. He started in the Old Testament. The last I heard, he had most of the Old Testament done. And he's handwriting the whole thing. And he's got the most beautiful hand you ever saw. It just looks like it's done by a machine, you know. I hope to get a copy of it when he's all through. Anyway, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Okay. It creates faith. So the place of faith. John 5.44, Christ said, How can you believe who receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that comes from God only? So in John 12, it says, Among the chief rulers also, many believed on him, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue. For they loved the praise of man more than the praise of God. How can you believe who receive the honor of man, and seek not the honor that comes from God only? How can you believe? Then in Matthew 21, Jesus Christ said to some of these people, he said, The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you, the Pharisees. He said, John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him. But the publicans and the harlots believed him, and you, when you had seen it afterward, did not repent that you might believe. And if you don't repent, you can't believe. Paul said, whenever we're preaching two things in Acts chapter 20, repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. In that order. Mark 1 says, Jesus said, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe the gospel. Believing is not the same as repenting, dear people. Repent. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. And let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. That's repenting. OK. Matthew 21, 22, All things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing you shall receive. The world says, Seeing is believing. The Bible says, Believing is seeing. What does it say there? In the Psalms. I've fainted unless I have believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I don't know the exact quotation there. Believing is seeing. So when Thomas said, Unless I see, I will not believe. And Jesus rebuked him and said, Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. Believing is seeing. The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. That's a passage in Romans 15. The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. And Peter said the same thing in 1 Peter 1. Christ, whom having not seen, you love. Though now you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy and speak the word full of glory. So Paul said, In believing, and Peter said, Yet believing. And Christ said, Believing. Believing brings the blessing. We want by faith, not by sight, not how it appears to be. That's where we go wrong. So be guided by circumstances when you have a promise of God and God's at work. In Mark 11, 24, What thing soever you desire when you pray, believe that you have received them. That's really how it runs. It may not be that way in your translation. I don't know. I'm doing what I say we shouldn't do now. But anyway, believe that you have received him, have received, and you'll have it. My faith, when I ask God for something, I've got to start believing from that moment that God is going to do this. That's really what it's saying. He fulfills the work of faith with power, 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. The work of faith. I said before, faith is a work and faith is a fight. You keep on believing, yet believing, in believing, and then God works. God responds and blesses us. He's the only one that can. Now in Mark chapter 9, we have that story. It's in three of the Gospels, but I like the one in Mark 9. It's a little clearer in some aspects. And so Jesus was on the mountain, Mount of Transfiguration, with Moses and Elijah. He came down and several disciples. He came down, and the Pharisees were needling the group of disciples that were there because they couldn't cast a demon out of a child. So Jesus took over and talked with the father how long this would go, since this happened. And he told him, he said, this demon throws him in the fire and the waters. And then the guy said to Christ, if you can do any... He's got the power to do it. I have the compassion to do it, but I can't do it without your faith. Do you ever think of that? You can apply that to life? No. Sometimes you're saying, oh God, if you can do anything, do something. And he says, no, no. If you can believe, if you can believe I can do something, but I can't otherwise. So straight away the father of the child cried out with tears and said, Lord, I believe. Deal with my unbelief. Help thou my unbelief. Unbelief was still there, but faith was in the ascendancy, and Christ healed the child. What a story. That story made a tremendous impact on me many years ago when I first saw it in his face. It's up to me to trust, to believe. Can we apply that to revival? I think we can. As a matter of fact, I think we should. We should be believing God.
Promises Regarding Revival - Part 1
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Wilbert “Bill” Laing McLeod (1919 - 2012). Canadian Baptist pastor and revivalist born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Converted at 22 in 1941, he left a sales career to enter ministry, studying at Manitoba Baptist Bible Institute. Ordained in 1946, he pastored in Rosthern, Saskatchewan, and served as a circuit preacher in Strathclair, Shoal Lake, and Birtle. From 1962 to 1981, he led Ebenezer Baptist Church in Saskatoon, growing it from 175 to over 1,000 members. Central to the 1971 Canadian Revival, sparked by the Sutera Twins’ crusade, his emphasis on prayer and repentance drew thousands across denominations, lasting seven weeks. McLeod authored When Revival Came to Canada and recorded numerous sermons, praised by figures like Paul Washer. Married to Barbara Robinson for over 70 years, they had five children: Judith, Lois, Joanna, Timothy, and Naomi. His ministry, focused on scriptural fidelity and revival, impacted Canada and beyond through radio and conferences.