In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of living a righteous and alert life. He shares a story of a man who fearlessly faced a dangerous situation because he had faith in heaven. The preacher encourages the audience to walk wisely, redeem their time, and be filled with the Spirit. He emphasizes that our lives are like a theater, being watched by God, angels, and even demons. The sermon concludes with a reminder to stay awake and prepared for the coming of Jesus. The preacher also shares a personal anecdote about a mischievous classroom experience.

We've already had a great message tonight, both in word and song, and it's just a blessing to my heart. You know, up in Canada, I don't know how it is here, too, as well as it is in Canada, but a lot of the churches, you know, they're singing new songs, and I'm not totally opposed to all new songs, but, you know, in Spurgeon they apparently had this problem, too, and he said a lot of these new songs are something like Jonah's gore that came up in the night and perished in the night. And he called some of it what he—he called it mermaid poetry. He said, fair enough where it breaks the surface, but totally fishy in the lower parts. And he also—he also had another way of describing it as being wax-nosed hymnology made to fit the face of any creed, you know, like beautiful Isle of Somewhere. Anyway, it's so good to hear the old songs. It's really blessed me greatly tonight. In Judges 5, there's a verse—it's not my text tonight, I won't even be speaking on it, I'm just going to mention it relative to something else. But there's a verse there that says that there's a curse pronounced upon those people who do not come up to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Does God need any help? Looks like he does. I mean, how is he going to get the job done unless we do it? He's got to work through us. Many times God could do much more than he is, but he doesn't because of our wicked unbelief. Psalm 78, remember that verse? They turned back and tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel. They limited what God could do. Then the same thing in the New Testament at Nazareth. He could there do no mighty works because of their unbelief. So God is crippled and hampered by our unbelief and our failure to come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty. I mention that because I want to ask some prayer. I've just finished a book, it's called A Baker's Dozen. A Baker's Dozen is 13, and it's 13 lies on which the homosexual movement is based. It was hard to find a printer that would print it, but I found a Christian printer in Ontario. They're glad to do it, and so it will be out probably in a month or a month and a half. I'll probably get a lot of flack over this, and at my age it doesn't really matter, they can even shoot me. It's a little late, you know. In any case, I would appreciate prayer relative to that particular matter, because there are certain people who won't be very happy. Okay. Ephesians chapter 5, if you want to look up the word of God there, Ephesians 5, beginning verse 14. Wherefore, he said, Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then, that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore, be you not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is, and be not drunk with wine in his excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Tonight I want to talk about God's alarm clock. You know, in the Old Testament there are, I think in the Psalms, five references to men calling on God to wake up. Now, we know God doesn't sleep, but it appears sometimes that God was asleep, and so people address God in this way. Awake! Why sleepest thou? Arise! Cast us not off forever! Well, God isn't sleeping, but it appears sometimes as if he was. In the New Testament, we have numbers of texts where God is calling on us to wake up. There are no texts in the New Testament that call on God to wake up. So he's calling on us to wake up, first of all, to salvation. In 2 Timothy 2, it says, The servant of the Lord must not strive. Don't get involved in foolish arguments. Don't go around looking for trouble. The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men. In meekness, it says, instructing and showing them the right way. So, you must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to keep patience. In meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, if God perhaps will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover. The Greek word there means awake. That they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will. The man that wanders out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead. There is such a thing as a dead congregation. I was talking with a preacher one time, and he told me he became pastor of this church. He had 900 members, and not one of them was born again, not even one. He began preaching the gospel, and he lost about 300 people right away. But finally, when we were talking together, he told me he had 60 couples that had found Christ as their personal Savior. There is such a thing as a dead congregation. I was raised in one as a kid. Never ever heard the gospel. We heard a lot of things, and some things we heard that were good. We never heard a thing about salvation. We had a Sunday school superintendent who was born again, and he was trying to get this through, and finally they fired him and got somebody who didn't have these stupid notions and gospel songs and so on, and so he was out of it. I would never have found Christ in that particular church, and certainly never did. But here, sometimes people are in living churches, but they're dead. Dead in sin, and they don't know that. My father was a very good living man. I mean, he'd have pounded the life out of us if he caught us stealing or lying or, you know, doing bad things. His dad was a born-again believer. My dad wasn't. And so my dad and mother didn't get along, and they split, and then mother got saved through a car accident, a wheel came off a car which wasn't too, you know, infrequent in those days, and she got saved as a result. And one day dad said, your mother's coming back, you don't have to listen to her religious talk. We didn't know what that meant, but mother became a Christian, and eventually all of us got saved, my dad when he was 74. You know, these statistics say that if you're not saved by the time you're 19, your chance of being saved are very small. Well, I guess my mother never read the book, you know, because none of us were saved in our teenage years. And my youngest brother, Keith, when he got married, he was so opposed to the gospel, when he and his wife were alone, they shook hands and promised each other they would never, ever become Christians. So how did he wind up? He wound up as an evangelist. I mean, God knows what he's about. It doesn't matter how old they are, they can be saved, you know, at any age. We have to believe God for his working in the hearts of the people of the land. It's an awful situation, as we've heard already tonight. All right, so people need to wake up. You know, my dad, the one night, he had a dream. He told us about it, and we knew exactly, because we were Christians then, what this dream was all about. He was standing on a highway at night with no light or anything, waiting for a bus, and finally saw the lights of a bus coming, and this bus came, but it was very strange, because there was no sound of the motor, no sound of the tires on the road, no sound of the brakes when the bus came to a stop. It just glided in like a shadow, not a sound, and the door opened without a sound, and he climbed in and got up, began looking up and down the aisle, and there was only one seat left, an aisle seat, and he sat in the seat, and he thought, it's funny, nobody's moving, nobody's talking. So he went to talk to the guy next to him and saw the guy was asleep, but then he looked more closely and saw the guy was dead. He shook him, and the guy was stiff, and he was dead. So he got up out of his seat and went up and down the aisle, shaking other people, all of them were stiff and dead. So he ran up to tell the driver, and he was dead, and then the dream ended. Of course, the message was quite clear. Bob, that's my dad's name, Bob, you're riding with a busload of dead people, you'd better get off, man. And my dad got saved. So, just in case you should be in this crowd tonight, somebody that's not born again, you're not positive about it, you'd like to be, take this verse, Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Right where you sit, you can be saved. Look unto him. You know how Spurgeon got saved? He was walking to church one morning, and the snowstorm was on in London. He didn't get to the church. He dropped into a primitive Methodist Wesleyan chapel. The preacher didn't show up, so one of the elders took over. And he preached. He didn't know how to preach, but he did his best. He got on that text, look unto me and thee who saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there's none else. And he saw this stranger sitting there, Spurgeon, this young man, 15 years of age, and he looked at him and said, young man, you look miserable. Look to Christ and be saved. And Spurgeon said, I looked, and I was saved. He said, I could have looked my eyes away. And that was the favorite text of them until he died. Look unto me, that they may recover themselves awake out of the snare of the devil, who were taken captive by him and his will. In 1932, there was a great revival in China. And it spread all over the country, and thousands were saved. One of the remarkable features of that revival was this, that there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of professing Christians, of Christian workers of every shape and kind that got saved, who had never been saved, who knew the evangelical language but didn't know the Lord. And that happened in the Canadian revival. A professor from the Bible college came to me one night and said, Bill, do you mind being late on the platform? I said, no, what's on your mind? He said, I'd like to get saved. I said, what? He said, I'd like to get saved. I said, you're not saved? No, he said, I've known the language, I got it from my mom and dad, but I've never known the Lord. And he called on God with such intensity, and he got saved. He was so happy afterwards. And we had people in my church who got saved, who were baptized members of the church. And some of them I thought were really good Christians, you know. Anyway, that's the first part. In 1 Corinthians 15, there's a text that says, Awake to righteousness. And sin not, for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak it to your shame. So the second part is this. If I've awakened to the call of the gospel and I've been saved, now the next step is to awake to righteousness. It's written of Jesus Christ that he loved righteousness and he hated iniquity. Therefore, God anointed him with the oil of gladness above his fellows. And if you love righteousness and hate iniquity, you'll be anointed with joy too. It can't be otherwise. The Bible says righteousness and peace have kissed each other. It's poetic language, but it's a tremendous truth. You don't have peace until you're right. If you're wrong with somebody, wrong with some people, wrong with God, you won't have any peace. The work of righteousness is peace. It says in Isaiah. And the effect of righteousness is quietness and assurance forever. What joy comes when you're right with God? What joy comes when you're right with men? I know what that's like because even as a Christian worker, there was a time when I was not right with certain people. And I had to make it right. And it's humbling to do that. But I say again, the work of righteousness is peace. And often in the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament alike, righteousness and peace are joined together. The mountains shall bring peace to the people and the little hills by righteousness. I mean mountains and hills don't bring peace to anybody. It's again a kind of poetic phrase there. But it's by righteousness that peace comes is what that text is saying. So God is saying to us as Christian believers, awake to righteousness and don't sin. I just heard the other day of a certain Christian. I happen to know him well. And it was a Christian, a lawyer, who told me this. He said, you know what he did one time? He borrowed a machine from a neighbor. And he used it, he had it a long while. But he didn't bring it back for six months or more. And during that period of time, he rented it out to other people and made money on it and kept the money himself. Does that sound right to you? Nobody's saying anything. You see a lot of Christians say, well, he's a sharp guy, you know, didn't get caught. Yeah, sharp is right. You wind up among the thorns, too. You're a little sharper. You have to be right. You've got to be honest. I know some friends of mine, they had a car and they made a deal for another car. And they had a certain garage selling cars. And the day before they brought the car in, the reverse gear went on. So they didn't know how to handle it. They had to outfox this guy at the garage now, you see. So they figured out what to do, you know, how to do this. Now, they were Christians. So they had the one guy walk to the garage ahead. And he talked to the garage guy and said, my brother's bringing the car down. He said, which stall? Well, this one right here, the guy said. Fine. So his brother came and he motioned. So he ran into the stall and he got out of the car. And just then the garage guy said, would you mind just backing up running into this stall? And of course, then they have to tell the truth, you know. But isn't it crazy that as Christians we do things like that? And it's not right. And it grieves God. And our peace goes. And our power goes. It might seem like a little thing, you know. I know another Christian and he was a great witness for God. But he had a caterpillar tractor. And the thing, the whole thing went to pieces right after the warranty time was over. So he was a pretty good mechanic. So he got into the thing and turned the warranty back. And he got away with it. And it bothered him for years, you know. And finally went back to the guy that he bought the thing from, told him what had happened. He said the guy stood there and he cursed him for about five minutes. He said, I felt terrible. Why did I do that? And he was asking the question, why did I go and do that? But like I say, you know, today, you know what the Bible says? You're not even supposed to fellowship with a fornicator or a drunkard or a railer or a covetous person. Did you know that? A covetous person is put in the same category as a drunkard or a violent extortioner. I mean, that's how it is. And so we Christians, we can't be too honest. We just have to be honest, that's all. Awake to righteousness. Which means that God sees that many Christians are not awake to righteousness. They're doing things they shouldn't be doing. I remember the Alliance pastor in Saskatoon. He had the largest evangelical work in the city at the time of the revival. We were good friends. And he said, you know, Bill, if God should take the lid off your church or mine some Sunday morning, I think we might find ourselves looking into hell. Well, God took the lid off. It wasn't on a Sunday morning, but he took the lid off, beginning on a Wednesday night actually. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. There was a guy in my church, if you had asked me to point out a patriarch, I'd have pointed him out. About 65 years of age, snowy white hair, gentle, kind disposition. Just a lovely Christian guy. And during the revival, he came to me, he was shaking from head to foot. He said, Pastor, I'm an adulterer. I'm an adulterer. Can I be forgiven? I just about dropped over dead. This man is an adulterer? I had a fellow in my church, he would come to me with a list of blocks, maybe 20 blocks, where he'd visit every home in these blocks. And he'd show me the area he'd visited. Then he'd say, now I had 35 invitations to come back for a second call. I led four people to Christ. Wonderful. He was the only guy in the church that hadn't been doing anything for God. You know what happened during the revival? A gal came forward, a married woman, and got her life straightened out. It turned out that this guy was sleeping with her on a regular basis. I couldn't believe it. I called him in. I said, Eddie, the word around the circle is that you're an adulterer. Is this true? He looked at me, and he found me. He put his hand on my desk, and he started a ball. And he said, I don't want God to put me on the assheap. I said, if you'll repent, God won't put you on the assheap. I couldn't believe it. This is the best guy I had. Hadn't I preached? Yes, I preached lots of the Bible. I preached as much Bible as I do now. You never know what's going on, you know, under the surface. It's not that we should be suspicious of our congregation. But, dear people, we need revival, because in the time of revival, all of this, almost all of it, comes to the surface, and it gets swept away in the power of God. And people who may be living morally, but are doing nothing for God, they come alive and begin to witness, and so when? I know of people who have never even tried in all the years they were Christian to win a soul to Christ, and God touched them in the revival, and they began soul winning. Remember one couple? They led 30 people to Christ in about nine months. They went on to an Indian reserve and won 35 Indians to Christ. And so we need revival. We'll get to that in a moment. But await to righteousness. Remember we talked this morning about adorning the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. Make it look good by living a godly life. I remember one time I was to preach just a Sunday morning in a church in Ontario. They'd had a real revival there about a year before, and it was about 1,000 people. They told me, Bill, you're going to be lifted right up off your feet in that church. And I was. It was just like everybody was saying, sick him, preacher. Everybody was just with me 1,000%. It was a wonderful experience. They were walking with God. The sins were gone. It's not that the church was perfect. I don't suppose there ever is this side of heaven such a thing as a perfect church. But a church that was renewed by the power of God. And people who were dishonest became honest. And people with a hard heart became soft hearted. I remember one time a pastor in the crusade I had in York and Saskatchewan, and he came to a pulpit in one of the meetings before I spoke one night, and he said, you know, many of you people have come to me, and you've been asking my forgiveness because you have bad feelings against me. He said, I appreciate that. He said, but, you know, so many of you have come, and it's finally dawned on me that there's got to be something wrong with me that you have all these bad feelings. So he said, a couple of days ago, I began asking God to show me what the problems are in my life. And he said, and then he started to weep, and people, he wept for 10 minutes. He got a few words out in the meantime, but he said, you know, God has shown me I'm filled, absolutely filled, overflowing with wicked, rotten pride. He said, I've never seen this before. Why didn't somebody tell me? He wept and wept and begged for forgiveness. And I said, you had a real move of God in the church after this happened. So whatever it is, whether it's lust or pride or whatever, a way to righteousness. And sin not. My little children, John wrote, God wrote to John. My little children, these things I write unto you, that you sin not. And then Peter told us to follow his steps, who did no sin. There's a prayer, you know, in Psalm 119. How does it go? Let not any iniquity have dominion over me. You ever pray that prayer? You ought to try and pray it every day. Lord, don't let any iniquity have dominion over me. Today. In thought, in word, in deed, or in attitude. Always add both words. In thought, in deed, in word, or in attitude. Sometimes your attitude is wrong. Let not any iniquity have dominion over me. I'm a child of God. I'm looking forward to being in the kingdom of God where there will be no sin ever, ever, ever. So why not get started now? You know, love is a language of heaven. You better learn how to talk it now. Or you're not going to feel at home in heaven. Anyway. Awake to righteousness and sin not. And he adds this thought. For some have not the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. And then the next thought would be this. Awake. I may be living a righteous life, but I may not be filled with the Holy Spirit. And the next thought would be this. Awake to the possibility of a spirit-filled life. And that's what we read in Ephesians chapter 5. Awake thou that sleepest not, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you life. See then that you walk circumspectly. Circumspectly means carefully or exactly. I join that with a verse in Hebrews chapter 12. It says, make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way. The lame, that's the sinner. But let it rather be healed. You see, if you're a professing Christian, there's likely some sinners that are following you. They're watching you. They're following you as an example. And so it's extremely important that we walk circumspectly, I say. Carefully, exactly, make straight paths for your feet. And Isaiah, there's a verse that says, they've made them crooked paths. Whosoever goes therein shall not know peace. And you may, sometimes as Christians, we're walking in crooked paths. And sinners give up on us. They see this guy's no different than I am. And where we could be a blessing, we're really a curse, not a blessing at all. I had a deacon at one of my churches many years ago. He was 85 years of age when I became pastor of the church. And he was still doing great as a deacon. Some don't deacon well at 25. He was doing great at 85. And we were talking one day, and he said, you know, the greatest thing that ever happened to me happened some years ago. He said, the chief on the local Indian reserve came to see me. And here's what he said, basically. Mr. McBain, I know that you're a Christian. I've been watching you for 25 years. And I believe you're a real Christian, according to the Bible. And I want you to show me how to be a Christian too. And he said, oh, Pastor McCloud, what if, what if I had failed him? And he'd seen me do something or heard me say something that wasn't right. Make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed. So it matters a great deal how you live, for the glory of God, for the good of men. You remember Paul said, we are made a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. The Greek word spectacle is theotron, from which we get the English word theater. So whether we like it or not, we're made a theater to the world, to angels and to men. Demons are watching, angels are watching, God is watching, people are watching. It matters a great deal how you live. You may not like that, you may not want that, you may reject that, but it's in the Bible. We are a theater to the world, to angels and to men. And it matters a great deal, I say, how we live, what we say, how we react to circumstances, and how we conduct business deals and so on. It's very important that we be right. And you know, the Lord will let you be tried time and time again. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all. We must, through much tribulation, inherit the kingdom of God. We're told that, so expect it. If you'll be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards, you're not sons, you're illegitimate children. You're not a child of God at all, if you can sin and get away with it. There's no way you can, if you're a born-again believer. God loves you too much. Whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives. Every son whom he receives. Thank God for his faithfulness in spanking you. I've had to thank him many times. So we are to awaken. See, the context goes on to talk about being filled with the Spirit. See them to walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time. The most important commodity you have is time. Use it well. Life goes so quickly by. I say that as a person who is heading for his 81st birthday. When I look back, where have the years gone? I don't know. I see now how precious time is and was, and I can think of time when I wasted time, redeeming the time, that is, making the most of every opportunity you have to live for God, to serve God, to help somebody else. By love, serve one another. Look not every man in his own things, but every man also in the things of others. This is what the Bible says. Let each receive mother better than themselves. And people say, how in the world can I do that when I know he isn't better than me? Oh, wait a minute. That's how you feel. You know what the problem is? You've never seen yourself. You know, Job was really a proud person, and he had eye trouble. You know, in chapters 29 to 31, I think there's something like, now don't quote me on this, I think it's something like 95 verses, but there are about 185 references in those three chapters to I, me, mine, mine. I was eyes to the blind. I was see to the lame. I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I broke the jaws of the wicked and plucked the spoils out of their teeth. My righteousness, I hold it fast. I will not let it go. And on and on it goes. When God was through with him, the same man who said, My righteousness, I hold it fast. I will not let it go. The same man said, Behold, I am vile. I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. He wasn't repenting for his sins, dear people. He was repenting for himself. How wicked he'd been. How self-centered. How proud he had been. I mean, God really did a work in his life. We call it a revival. God spoke to him out of the whirlwind. The Lord has his way in the whirlwind, the Bible says. I think it's in the book of Nahum, and in a storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. What a God we serve. Wherefore, be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine in his excess, but be filled with his spirit. Acts 13, 52 says, And the disciples, not the twelve, but just the disciples, just the Christians in the churches, and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost. In Romans 14 it says, The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace, there it is again, and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved of man. That's Romans 14. Romans 15, The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. That's New Testament Christianity, dear people. What we have in North America is a North American brand of Christianity. It's not the real thing. Just because some people have overemphasized the Holy Spirit is no reason why we should just kind of clip it out of the Bible entirely. So be filled. It's not an option, it's a command. Be filled with the Spirit. And, of course, to be filled with the Spirit, I have to be emptied of self. That's where it starts. That's the hard part. I remember once after revival, and the Lord, I didn't hear a voice. You know how you communicate with the Lord, and you understand what he's saying, he understands what you're saying, and it went like this. He was saying, Would you mind if somebody else got credit for something you did? And I said, Well, the flesh wouldn't like it, but I'll praise your name if you do it. About two days later, I was in the home, and they got talking about a family that I led to the Lord, and somebody said, Wasn't it wonderful how the Murphys led that family to Christ? Well, you know, before I'd been touched by God, I would have found some Christian way, some sanctified way, of streaking the record, so they would know it wasn't the Murphys, it was me. You know, I sat there, and I looked up to him, and I said, I knew what the Lord was doing. I think he smiled back to me, to awaken to the possibility of the spiritual life. You know, in Isaiah 60, it ends by saying, A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one, a strong nation. I, the Lord, will hasten it in its time. And that's the introduction to chapter 61. Remember, these chapter divisions are an arbitrary arrangement. They're not inspired. The verses and the chapter divisions are certainly not inspired of God. They were just put in to make it more convenient. Originally, all of these writings, they had no chapters and no verses. Anyway, I say that because what we just quoted from Isaiah 60, it runs on to chapter 61, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. And it's when God's Spirit is on a person that one can become a thousand, and a small one can become a strong nation. There's no limit to what God can do to a person that's anointed by him, has found the will of God, and is in the will of God, and is staying in the will of God until God blesses. You know, the early missionaries who went to the South Sea Islands, they were there 14 years before they saw a single convert. 14 years. And they stayed with it because they believed God. And you know what happened? The Sending Society in Scotland, they sent a message which came on a boat to these people, eventually it got to them. And the message was, close up, we're going to put you in a more fruitful field. But before that boat got to them, it had a revival. And they had taken a bunch of idols and put them in a box and shipped them back to the Sending Society in Scotland to say, God has begun to work. And what happened? Listen, people, thousands were saved. These people were cannibals. They'd often seen people roasting over a fire. Just a miracle of God had never happened to them. I guess they didn't like them because they had a white skin. I don't know what it was. But anyway, it was so, the revival was so great that one place they built a church and received a thousand in this end, a thousand in that end, and a pulpit at both ends. They had two services going at the same time. I don't know why they did it that way. They could have built two buildings, I suppose, but maybe it was a little cheaper or something. But just to illustrate. But they stayed with it. And the Bible says, in due time we shall reap if we don't think. As we have there for opportunity, let us do good unto all men. Do all the good you can. There'll be a harvest time someday. Those people will remember what you did. They'll think of the God that inspired you to do what you did or to say what you said that helped them in a time of need. It was so important. But to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. You know, in Galatians chapter 5, it says if we live in the Spirit, let's also walk in the Spirit. What's the difference between living in the Spirit and walking in the Spirit? Well, there is a difference, I think, a great difference. I'll try and explain it. In Romans chapter 8 it says this, You're not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. If you're born again, you then have the Holy Spirit living within you. And from that moment, from the time you received Christ, you're now living in the Spirit. But you may be living in the Spirit, but not walking in the Spirit. That's what he's saying. And in the same chapter 5, the 16th verse, This I say then, walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would. But if you be led of the Spirit, you're not under the law. Led of the Spirit. So in Romans chapter 8 it says likewise, If you live after the flesh, you'll die. If you through the Spirit do put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. So I may be living in the Spirit, but not walking in the Spirit. Not allowing the Spirit to lead me in my life, the profession I choose to be in. You know, Martin Lloyd-Jones was a doctor. And he was not only a doctor, he was one of the best doctors in England. He was heading for research in medicine. And God called him to preach. And he gave it up. And of course his colleagues thought he'd gone crazy in the head. He hadn't. He'd just heard the call of God. And he gladly gave it up. And he didn't give it up in part, he gave it up, man, to be what God wanted him to be. And he became what God would have him be. They called him the second Spurgeon. They said, he said, he never ever preached, but he preached with a faith in his heart that God would reveal himself to somebody in that crowd that day. He was always expecting this to happen and waiting to hear about it. But God spoke to somebody. I remember reading an article one time about him and some well-known Christian who had heard about him had some reservations. He thought the praise was too lavish, you know, and sometimes maybe it is. But he went to hear him. And Martin Lloyd-Jones preached, dismissed the congregation, and this fellow just sat. And his friends were waiting to get his reaction, you know, and he never moved. He just sat there. And they waited and waited and he was still sitting there. And finally they went over. He was saying something. And they got close enough to hear what he was saying. And he was saying, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. God had spoken to him. It was a wonderful thing. It's always a wonderful thing, you know, Elijah in the cave. Wind, a wind so strong it was smashing the rocks. You're thinking now of maybe 500 miles an hour. An earthquake, fire. But the Lord wasn't in the fire or the earthquake or the wind. And after all this demonstration of the great power of God, there was a still, small voice. God said, be still and know that I am God. I'll be exalted among the heathen. I'll be exalted in the earth. The Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him. Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord. Be filled with the Spirit. This is the thing the Spirit uses us in the lives of others. We have enough Christians in North America to evangelize the world in five years, easily. But the problem is we're not filled with the Spirit. We're praying for a Bible. May I ask you a question? How many of you have a copy of the book? Perhaps a dozen have. Get a copy of the book, Operation War, because we're going into another stage now. It has to do with mission. Because if I'm filled with the Spirit, I'll be doing what God is wanting me to do, going where God wants me to go. That won't be a problem. But mission. This book, Operation War, it has information, up-to-date information. They revise it about every three or four years. They have information on every country in the world, including the United States of America. They tell you the size of the country, the population density of the country, how many people live there, what the ethnic origin of the people are, how many evangelicals are in the country. They'll tell you all about the various religions that may be in the country and so on. And at the end of the write-up, on every country in the world, they give you anywhere from 5 to maybe 15 or 20, maybe even 30 or 40 different things you can pray for relative to that country. I have a copy of the book at home. How do I use it? I pray for two countries every day. You know what often happens? You'll pardon me just sharing this, but you know, for many, many years, actually before the revival in Saskatoon, God wakens me every night to pray for revival. Now, I know it's going to come. I'm not sure if I'll see it from this side. I'll see it from the other side if I don't. That's not important. But I know it's going to come because the burden is never lifted. But every night I awaken and pray for revival. Sometimes I pray for revival in Canada. Sometimes I pray for revival in the United States. And sometimes I pray for every country in the world I can think of. I might miss a few, but I've got to know the countries of the world, and it's a great blessing to be able to pray for these countries. Are you praying for the Muslim walls to fall down? There's 800 million people or so in those countries, you know. If they profess the faith, they'll likely die. I met a fellow in the Philippines. He was from Saudi Arabia. He'd become a Christian. He met a Christian girl in Manila, and he said, I said to myself, I'll make a Muslim out of her in six months. She made a Christian out of him in four months. And so he got baptized. Then he told me, I was talking to him and his wife, and he said, you know, my parents are very wealthy. I haven't told them I'm a Christian yet, but I'm going to let them know soon. And as soon as this happens, they'll hire an assassin. If it takes 25 years, they'll pay him for the whole time until he finds me and takes my life. He said, I'm wondering where we ought to go. I said, come to Canada. It's a big country. No, it's too cold. He said, I think we'll go to Australia. I think that's where he went. I don't know. But that's how it is in Saudi Arabia and Iran and Iraq and Turkey and Yemen and Oman and Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. Many of these countries, not all of them. Indonesia is a Muslim country. It's the only Muslim country in the world I know about where a lot of people are being saved. There have been touches of revival on many of the islands. I think there's probably at least 3,000 inhabited islands out of the 7,000 islands that make up the archipelago there. And God is doing some good. And when Muslims come out, they sometimes come to see them. And they'll tell them things like this. Everybody I know listens to your broadcast. Everybody's listening to it. Maybe a lot of them have prayed secretly to accept Christ, but they're afraid to confess him because they know it waits. They've had public hangings. They've beheaded people publicly. We've got to be ready for that, though. And following revival, when I pray for revival, I'm praying for world revival, praying for every country I can think of in the world. Know that Belgium and Austria and Europe are two of the neediest countries in the world as far as missions is concerned. They're just as needy as India is. And that's not hard to get to. But it's hard to get workers to them. There are probably at least 15 or 20 cities, small cities of 15,000 or more in Belgium that don't have a Christian witness of any kind. You can take your pick. A friend of mine in Argentina, he went out one time to try and find the mission, told him to find a place where the gospel wasn't being preached and set up shop and start. He came back. He said he found about 35 places that needed a preacher. And do you know that in India, I've read of Christian workers. I've been in India a couple of times. And there are places where one guy has got 45 villages to look after. Every one of them need a full-time worker. He's trying to do it for 35. When I was in Romania, they had, I think it was 1,400 Baptist churches in Romania. They only had about 125 pastors for all of these churches. So the average pastor was pastoring four or five congregations. One guy told me he had eight congregations. And what was the result of all this? The result of all this was just the fact that many people, many preachers, they had no time to study. And the message that they were giving to the people were very weak. And the people were complaining about it. There wasn't anything to be done about it because there was not enough workers to go around. The least we can do is pray for countries like this that God will do a mighty thing there. God is doing it. Mozambique, Madagascar, Transworld Radio, one area in a five-year period, there were 27 churches started through their radio broadcast. Thank God for that. And many of these broadcasts now, what they're doing, one of the things they're doing is they're giving courses for pastors so pastors can tune in once a week and be trained how to be a pastor. You and I need to be involved in things like this, not sit around, you know, the Bible says the field is the world. The field is not the United States of America or Canada. It's the world. And God is just concerned about India or any other country as He is about North America. This is not the only place where the action is. God is doing great things. I've been in foreign countries in revival meetings where I gave an invitation, 700 or 800 people responded. God was working in people's hearts in deep and powerful ways. To God be the glory. I say great things He has done. So we need to wake up to missions, wake up to be a spiritual life, and then wake up to missions to see what can be done, do all we can through prayer and through giving and all the rest of it. Ask for God to call your kids into the mission field. You know, most Christians are afraid to do that. People send me brag sheets, you know, usually at Christmas time, and tell us all about their children. This one's a doctor, this one's a lawyer, this one's running some factory somewhere. I go through the whole list. Not one of them's in Christian work. It's a kind of a brag sheet. I just feel so badly about it. There's nothing wrong with being a doctor and a lawyer, no. There's something wrong with not even one kid in a Christian family goes into full-time Christian work. There's something wrong. We don't want them to go into Christian work. We want to have them nice and handy. I hear Christian parents, and they're so happy because all their kids are married, and they're all living within 100 miles. You think that's great? I don't think it's great. And if you're asking about my kids, well, my son worked with a manual mission for some years. Then he was in Bangladesh for several years with a government relief program. And I have a daughter in the Philippines with a mission, she and her husband. Another daughter of mine, she's a pastor's wife. So we gave them all to God. They're not all in full-time Christian work yet. My youngest daughter is not, but we gave them all to God. And I remember telling God, Lord, we've got all eternity to visit. You can take them all. You can have them all. Send them anywhere you want. I'll praise your name. You know, it's really great to do that, you know, because then, man, you've got a kid somewhere in a foreign country serving God, you know. That's wonderful, absolutely wonderful. I was in Great Falls, Montana one time, and the pastor was in the Alliance Church, and he said, hey, there's a missionary from the Alliance mission. He's in town. Could we maybe give him some time? I said, listen, why don't we give him half an hour every meeting? Give him the first half hour. Okay, we did that. Am I ever glad we did it? I'll tell you why. He told us the story of his life. God called him to be a preacher, and God called him to the mission field. God called him to Africa. You know how he prayed? He said, Lord, send me to the country in Africa that nobody else wants to go to. Give me the hardest, toughest field in the whole of Africa. You send me there. I'll be glad to go. I forget the name of the country he was in, but it's the hottest country in Africa, apparently. But he was showing slides one night, and here's a slide of a bunch of his men. You know, all they had was loincloths. I never saw such a ragged-looking bunch of guys in all my life. And he said, those are my men. Then he started to cry. He cried. He said, they're the best friends I've got. I can hardly wait to get back there. He was completely identified, as we should be. People need to waken up to these various things. Get out of the snare of the devil if you're not born again. Then awake to righteousness. Then awake to a spiritual life. Then awake to mission. And the last thought would be, wake up, because Jesus is coming. I remember in school, it happened that my father was a caretaker in the school I attended in my teenage years. And I had to walk the line, because she'd tell my dad, and I'd get the business when dad got home. Well, one day in the classroom, we got a little thing going. A kid had a trumpet. And our teacher, she would sometimes fall asleep, you know. And she'd stand there like this, and her eyes would close, and she'd start to sway. We were always, you know, as kids are, we were hoping she'd fall over, but she never did. And so we had it all figured out. So this kid, he was right by the window. It was on the first floor, and the window was up. And he suddenly blew a mighty blast in the trumpet, and she came awake and almost fell over. Who did that? Who did that? Who did that? And we said, who did what, Miss Buchanan? Well, she said, somebody blew a trumpet. Oh, Miss Buchanan, you were sleeping. You were dreaming. Nobody blew a trumpet. She said, somebody blew a trumpet. I heard it. I'm going to get the principal. And she started up down the door, you know. And there was a glass thing in the door, and we could see her. She didn't know that. We could see her shadow on the far wall. And she walked, and then we saw her come sneaking back, you see. And she got down below the glass, and finally when she got this high, we all waved to her, you know. And she brought the principal down. In the meantime, we got the trumpet out the window. So he searched the room and couldn't find the trumpet. And so then the class, we told the principal we shouldn't have done that, you know. I can't make it up to her now. She's been dead a long while. Maybe in heaven if she's there, I don't know. Anyway, Jesus said he'd come like a thief, right? Matthew 24. Then Peter said he'd come like a thief. John said he'd come like a citizen. He's not placed in the book of Revelation. So a thief coming that's unannounced, unexpected, no advance notice, at such a time, such an hour as you think not, he'll come. We just don't know when. He never said, though, be occupied with my coming. He said occupied till I come. That's a different thing. We know he's coming. We want to be wide awake. Let us not sleep as others do, Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Let us watch and be sober, for there is sleep, sleep in the night, lay to be drunken or drunken in the night. But lest we're of the day, be sure we're putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for our helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us. So let's not sleep like others do. Let them sleep as they will. Don't you sleep. Be wide awake and alert. And if God calls you to come to his help against the mighty, get in there. Get shot at a little bit. I was preaching an open air meeting one time and a guy threw a rock at me. Boy, could I preach good after that rock hit, you know. It didn't hit me, but boy, could I preach after that. Man, I could have gone on for two hours. If you're shocked when you're preaching, brother, you'll find out you'll be able to witness like you could never witness before. We don't want to be afraid of that. Like this guy I heard about, he was going down a back lane in some American city. That's not a bad, a good program in, you know, it's nighttime and it was nighttime and some guy jumped up and stuck a pistol in his face and demanded his money and he laughed at him. You know what he said? You can't scare me with heaven. And he kept on going and never even shot him. They're probably still looking at the gun, you know, wondering what happened. Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light. He'll give you light. See then, that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Wherefore be you not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is, and be not drunk with wine when it is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? Tomorrow in one of the sessions I'll likely say something about the revival in Canada, particularly as regards the preparation for revival. What we did, get ready, how we prayed. You might pray about that, that'll be a session that'll be helpful and really challenging to our hearts. May I just say this before I close, Stoddard was a New England clergyman back in the days of Jonathan Edwards, and in 35 years he had five revivals in his church, and in his revivals hundreds of people were converted. So you know what happened? A bunch of clergymen got together with Stoddard and they said, Stoddard, God is not blessing our church with revival, why is he blessing yours? And he said, brethren listen, he's not singled out my church to bless my church above your churches, but we prepare for it. What do you do that we don't do? He said, we fast for revival, we pray for revival, we preach for revival, we believe God for revival, and you're not doing any of those. You're just waiting for some miracle to happen. You know, after all, in 2 Timothy chapter 1, Paul in writing to Timothy said, stir up the gift of God which is in you by the putting out of my hand. Now other translations say, stir into flame. The Spanish Bible says, revive the gift of God which is in you. You know, there's our side to it. There's our side to it. There's something I can do. So Paul, he must have heard that Timothy was not doing too well. Maybe he sensed it or God showed him or something. And so he said, Timothy, he talked about Timothy's genuine faith and then he said, stir into flame, stir up the gift of God which is in you. God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord nor of me his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God. That's man's side of it. And just before I close, you know, in Psalm 119, there's a prayer. I've prayed it. It's time for thee, Lord, to work for they've made void your law. I've prayed it often. I guess maybe hundreds of times. Oh God, it's time for you to work. You know, it comes back to me from heaven, from Romans 13. God said, it's high time for you to wake up to sleep. It's high time for you to wake up. For now is your salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness. Let's put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put you on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust for all. Galatians 5.24 says, They that are Christ have crucified the flesh for their passions and lusts. So people, when I'm calling on God for revival, God is calling back to me and saying, Brother, it's high time for you and the church to waken out of its sleep. Wake up, lay hold of God, pray for revival, believe God for revival, fast for revival. There's a book called The History of American Revivals of Religion written in 1832 by Reverend Calvin Colson. I'm glad I read that. One of the things he was saying, and I'm going to close in a minute, but this is what he said. We were never satisfied with what he called insulated conversion. We would use the word isolated. He meant ones and twos and threes. He said that's fine. God's working. We don't deny that, but that's not revival. He said we fasted and prayed and believed God until he said the Holy Ghost came and took the work out of our hands and made the whole community aware of God and then hundreds and thousands were converted. And here's what he said. I never knew a church that believed God would do it where God didn't do it and I never saw God do it in a church that didn't believe he would do it. So there is a human element. We give God all the glory. Only God can do it, but there is a human side to it. We have to waken out of our sleep and lay hold of God and fast and pray and we'll talk more about that tomorrow. Bless you all. I love you all. I'd like to take you back to Canada with me. And I'm not thinking of the fishing either, just in case you were. All right, let's just pray. Father in heaven, we want to thank you for the Bible, the wonderful way you put it together and given it to us. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise and simple. Oh God, we thank you. Your word is perfect, it's powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword and we thank you, Father, for it. Now Lord, whatever you're doing in our heart, continue to do it. God, help us even tonight, perhaps to spend some hours alone on our faces before your throne. Teach us, Lord, how to pray. Oh God, give us a burden, lay a burden in our heart. I see some of those refugees from Kosovo, Father. They could be my kids. They look just like kids from Canada State. These whole families, hundreds of thousands of people thrust out of their homes and all of this. Whatever the causes, whatever the reasons, but Lord, these are people that need Christ. We've got the message. We've got to find a way to get it to the world. And Father, we can't think of a better way than God, the Holy Ghost, coming in power into our churches. Father, we need that. Oh Holy Ghost, revival comes from thee. Send a revival. Start the work in me, your glory and honor. In Christ's name, Amen.