In this sermon, the speaker discusses the importance of prayer and the need for believers to have honest dealings with God. He emphasizes that while we may appreciate and respect our pastors and church leaders, we should not idolize them, as God will ultimately reveal their flaws. The speaker also mentions the fulfillment of prophecy and how the disciples, filled with the Holy Spirit, proclaimed the gospel and performed miracles, causing people to wonder and ask what was happening. The sermon concludes with a reminder that God is observing our churches and our lives, and that our unbelief and indifference can hinder His work.

Now, our gracious God and loving Heavenly Father, we have come now to the opening hour of our convention. And thou hast said in thy word, Them that draw nigh unto me, I will draw nigh unto them. And O God, we pray thee that thou would commune with us from after blood-stained masses this night. Father, we beseech of thee that thou wouldst make this, O God, a hallowed evening, that thou wouldst anoint us in ministers, in the word and in the singing, and anoint every believer to listen. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray. Amen. Now, it's a real joy for me to be back once again to Milldale, and then to share the ministry this week with Dr. Sheehan. Mr. Stewart and myself, we have admired him from afar off. We don't know each other too intimately, but we have been thrilled with the rich expositions of the word that we have heard that he delivers. And, of course, we have been praying for him down the years. And we know that you, dear pastors and others, are going to receive a rich blessing through the ministry that God will give him. Now, this evening, I'm just opening up the service and Dr. Sheehan is doing the preaching. And the word that God has given me for the convention this week is in Ezekiel chapter 36. And I'm taking only a verse for the sake of brevity. Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse 37. Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them. I will increase them with men like a flock. Let me read it to you as dear brother Blackburn was saying in our meetings last week. If I have read this correctly, we're reading from or we have read such and such and such and such a passage. Let me read it to you correctly once again. Thus saith the Lord God, Ezekiel 36, 37. Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of the house of Israel to do it for them. Now, here are simple explanations of this promise. First, this is the this of the covenant promise of God. I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them. We can see that this is from the whole reading of the whole chapter. That is a covenant promise from Jehovah himself. And revival comes when God's people claim the covenant promises of Jehovah. We had meetings, Mrs. Stewart and myself, in the First Baptist Church in Texas recently. And a dear sister wrote us and said, oh thank God the blessing the books have been for my life now. But she said, think of it, I have been deluded and deceived by Satan all round the years. I thought I was living close to the heart of Christ, but I wasn't. And the reason why I was living at a distance from God was because I did not claim the promises of God. Now, just a simple housewife. And she says, I have discovered that I must claim the promises of God every day. If I am going to live a dynamic Christian life and be victorious over the powers of hell. And then second, this is the this of a definite spiritual transformation in your life. You know that I have said often at Milldale, I don't like the word revival anymore. You American people have corrupted it. You're prostitutes. You have dragged it to the dust. Revival doesn't even mean a thing. I like the word revolution. That's the word I use. And so I will yet for this be inquired of the house of Israel to do it for them. This is the this of a definite spiritual experience that will transform your life. Now, I do trust that there's not a single believer here tonight, both young and old, who has come just to get maybe some spiritual excitement. I know there's nothing so glorious as to get thrilled and stirred through the ministry of the word of God and even the deep expositions of the word of God. But my dear brother and sister, the time is too short. The time is too short for us just to have our feelings touched or just to receive a passion emotion. Just to cry out and shout glory hallelujah and then run home and tell everybody I got a great blessing at Milldale. And then you're back to living the same old life ten days or three weeks later. I thank God that I can go back to places in Europe. And the people say to me, 40 years ago, my life was completely revolutionized when you were speaking in such and such a meeting. And so, you know, God in his wonderful grace and mercy has answered prayer and supplied all the money for our intercession chapel. And I have been praying for two years for that chapel to be built. And you know, I don't know the name of the chapel, but I've already called it Peniel. I have seen God face to face. And the idea of that intercession chapel is that when the thousands who come to all these conferences or camp meetings these different months, when they hear from heaven through the singing and through the preaching they'll have a place to go, a quiet place and get along with God and see God face to face. Now I know you've come to have happy fellowship with each other. We want you to hug each other and laugh and shout and enjoy yourself. But I trust that there's nobody here tonight who has come just to play with God. I trust that you have come with a sincere heart. Not just to meet with your brother or sister. That's not enough. Thank God for that. Every time we meet other fellow believers in Christ we are drawn closer to him and we get a blessing. But if we only meet with man at this convention, it is not enough. The hour is too late. We must meet face to face with God and we must have honest dealings with God. Both pastors and ordinary members of the church. And then thirdly, the that of prophecy can become the this of fulfillment. The that of prophecy and promise can become the this of fulfillment. You remember when the disciples were filled with the Holy Ghost in the upper room that he drove them out from their place of fear out into the streets of Jerusalem proclaiming the glorious gospel, the grace of God. And the wondering multitudes cried out, What is this phenomena? These revolutionized disciples. These miracles, what meaneth this? And you remember how in verse 16 of Acts 2 Peter is bespoke and he says, this is that. This is that. And then you remember in verse 33 he says, He, this risen Redeemer, he hath shed forth this, which you both do see in here. So the that of prophecy and promise became the this of the fulfillment in their lives on the day of Pentecost. And so tonight, the that of the promise of the word of God can become the this of the fulfillment in your experience this evening. Let us get right with God now. You know, God has been giving you precious promises even before you came to Middle Day. I told you last night in the church gathering that it's always been a very precious verse to me what I preached on last night that the upper room would be furnished with a carpet there like the Oriental House. And the God, I have to claim the promises from God. Go to the booth. And then God will give me these promises sometimes for financial delivery. And I stand on them in desperation until I get the victory. And then I can write my mission and say, hallelujah, God has sent us financial delivery. Now I don't know what your peculiar circumstances tonight. We received a letter this evening from a dear sister of ours in Christ. Not an earthly sister, but a sister in Christ. I know if all hell ever entered a Christian home, it entered that home. And a dear sister, who has thousands of you even here, she has married to fight Satan in the most amazing way all by herself. And maybe you are battling against the forces of hell. Maybe, dear pastor, God has given you a precious promise for revival in yourself. And the more you pray, as a brother pastor wrote me from the Dusty Roads Convention in Pennsylvania. He said, the more I pray for revival in my church, the worse it gets. And maybe, dear sister, you're battling. You're battling, and the Lord has promised to save your husband. Then I want you, I pray God tonight, that that promise will become the disk of fulfillment in your life tonight. You'll have the story of the preacher asking for people, you know, for praying for the loved ones. And one sister said, pray, pray for my husband, he's not staying. And my friend said to him, the evangelist friend of mine, Englishman said, He said, have you got a promise that God will save your husband? Oh, Moses had never thought of that. Well, he said, you go home and ask God for a promise to save your husband. And glory be to God, when she came back a few nights later, she was all smiling. And after the meeting, he said, I can tell by your face you've got a promise from the Lord. What's the promise? Moses said, hallelujah, I've got it. Neither who shall be left behind. Amen. And glory be to God, her husband got saved. Well, friend, I don't know what promise you've got. But glory be to God, you can have that promise fulfilled right now in this meeting. And then, you know, only God can do this. You know, in this chapter of Ezekiel, chapter 36, there are eight I wills. Maybe you'll find more than I do. My wife usually does. Maybe you'll find more than I do. But just for example, verse 37, where we are reading, I will increase them with men like a flock. My own text. I will increase them with men like a flock. And go on to the last verse. As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in a solemn seat, so shall the great cities be filled with flocks of men, and they shall know that I am the Lord. Now, you know, in Ezekiel, the emphasis is, they shall know that I am the Lord. And I get so tired of believers who do not have the glory of God at heart. Every time I read these words over and over again in Ezekiel, oh, I want to identify myself with my loving Heavenly Father. And I say, oh God, do it. Lord, do it. Do it, Lord. Because they shall know, the heathen and the church will know, that you're Jehovah. Only God can do it. And then just in closing, this promise is for the house of Israel alone. For the house of Israel alone. I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel. To do it, Father. Now, you know, many times when I'm preaching in church, not so much now because I'm very quiet and down a lot, but when I first came to this stage, I wasn't long preaching, you know, I always began with believers, you see. When I first came to this stage, I could go on seven weeks in the church. Now you can hardly go on seven hours. But anyhow, I always began with believers as I do in Europe. And you know, the believers and church members all seemed to get excited, and also the pastors. And they would come up and say to me, and brother Stuart, when are you beginning preaching to the unsaved? And you know what was wrong? I just, I was getting too hot for that. And you know, we talk a lot about gospel-hardened sinners. No, no, no. Gospel-hardened believers. Oh yes, gospel-hardened believers. And you see, the message is for believers. Now, you know, the Second Chronicle 714 has been our revival gospel, or our revival classic verse for years. It's my people, it's my people, so humble themselves. But I believe Ezekiel 36 and 23 is just as great a revival classic as Second Chronicle 714. Listen to the words. And I will sanctify my great name, which he hath profaned among the heathen. Which he hath profaned in the midst of them. And the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. When will they know that Jehovah is Jehovah? When will they stand in amazement? When I shall be sanctified in, before them, in your eyes. When I shall be sanctified in you. What does it mean? It means, let hallowed be thy name, glorified be thy name, holy be thy name, beautified be thy name, in the church. Now, the opposite to sanctification is profaning the name of the Lord. And believers have committed the awful sin of profaning the name of the Lord among the unsaved, among the lost. And many an unconverted person has cursed and sworn, taking God's name in vain because of you, a member of the body of Jesus Christ. And you have cursed God's name because of you. And you are sending them to hell tonight. Because you are not right with God. You're a backslider. You have abominated the name of Jehovah in the eyes of the unsaved. And God says, now I'll send revival when I shall be sanctified in you, before their eyes. And then, friend, God is going to do this for his glory alone. Let me say that again. God is going to do this for his glory alone. I'm so glad that Pastor tonight, in his introductory remarks to our conference, said that only one name has to be glorified here. We know there is a line of demarcation that we cannot cross. There must be an appreciation of a preacher's ministry. And my wife will tell you that possibly I'm the greatest sentimentalist of all. When it comes to appreciating people's ministry, because she says I would write a book about everybody. My daughter just wrote me, my eldest daughter, a missionary, just wrote me, and she said, Dad, have you begun to write Dr. Bob John Singer's life story yet? But you see, we can appreciate a man of God. We need church members to appreciate their pastor and respect their pastor. But the moment, friend, you make any man your idol, God is going to damage that idol before your eyes. You know, I was an international, you know, soccer, football player, you know, student. And I lived in this atmosphere, you see, a self-glory. And the first thing I did was to run down to the newsstand and the newspaper to get the paper, you see, if my photograph was in, about the three goals I scored in Saturday afternoon, and so on. And you see, you live for your goal. You played, you scored, you kicked that ball, you played right to the very end. What, you thought? But, you know, when I began to preach, I had to discover how to preach for the greater God and the greater God alone. I've always loved Spurgeon because the simple reason that I've known so many of his friends. And, you know, we have a Spurgeon's historic light show at the back there on the table. And, you know, a friend of mine once invited a very particular, a very particular Episcopalian to come and hear Spurgeon. And he said, well, if he's that wonderful, I'd better go and hear him. And this was a born again Episcopalian. Excuse me using the sound, but he was. He was a born again Episcopalian. And he went with his friend to hear Mr. Spurgeon. And after the morning service, as they were leaving among the 6,000 and coming down the Metropolitan Tabernacle Step, he said to his friend, oh, he said, you know, I saw a lot of Spurgeon before I had them. But now, he says, I don't think much of them at all. Oh, the Spurgeonite, he got a fright. He got a shock. And when he got away from the crowd and the noise, he said, what do you mean? He said, he's the greatest preacher on earth. Yes, he said, that's what I'm trying to tell you. He said, I went to hear Spurgeon, but he says, I only have Jesus. I went to see Spurgeon, but I didn't see him. I only saw his law. And John says, John 3 says, he must be a preacher, now he must be Jesus. We can quote that. I quote that at the end of my letters. Another thing to live experientially. And the more any preacher, the more any Christian in preachers, the more his law decreases. And the more you decrease, the more your law decreases. And God says, I'm going to do this for my glory and my glory alone. You know that one of my favorite stories is of William T. Burns. And when he was leading these mighty revivals in my country of Scotland, the greatest evangelist of my country, at only 22 years of age, with Murray MacPherson and others. But our greatest evangelist. Thousands would flock down the streets to hear him preach. Without ever saying, preach to us, preach to us, preach to us. But he was leading all the crowd to go to China as a pioneer missionary. And one story, so a London correspondent said to him, newspaper man, Mr. Burns says, why are you going to China? I suppose you're going to China to convert souls. No, he said, I'm going to China to glorify God. Now you may say that was the wrong answer. You say that man didn't have a passion for souls. Oh, yes. I've called, in the story I've written about him, I've called him the man with a passion for souls. He works for souls. Oh, yes. He was denounced to win China for Christ. But first and foremost, he was denounced to glorify God. And then lastly, many are diligent in asking God to do this. I will yes, I will yes. Oh, brothers, sisters, can you hear the cry in the voice of Jehovah? I will yes be in pride of the house of Bethlehem to glorify Him. I will yes, yes, yes, yes, be in pride of my people to do this, to glorify Him, to bring Him back to myself. I will yes for this be in pride, yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, this breaks my heart, brother. We are diligent. We are slow in asking God to do this great thing for us. You know, some of you have a sermon you preach to on the seven mysteries of God. And maybe you've got a pastime. I don't know how many. And you may preach on the 17 mysteries of God in this country. Friend, God has two mysteries about you. The mystery of your unbelief. Our Lord Jesus, God incarnate in the flesh, He marvels, He marvels of our unbelief. Astonished. God is looking down from heaven tonight and looking down on our fair land of USA and looking down upon our churches and upon the priesthood and looking down upon His assembled here at New Day and His astonishment. He marvels of our unbelief. And the arm of Jehovah's paralyzed tonight because of our unbelief. He could not do many mighty works because of their unbelief. And the second mystery of God is our indifference to His promises. I will yet further be incarnate of my people to do this for them. God, we are told by Isaiah was astonished that there was no intercession. We love our singing and thank God we've got the best of singing at New Day. We love our preachers and thank God we've got the best of preachers at New Day. But we don't love our prayer meeting. I remember when I first came to the states and was telling people in the central state of the convention about revivals in Europe. I shall never forget two Baptist pastors coming to me after a service and they said to me, Brother Stewart, serious man, are you trying to tell us that if we only pray we'll have revivals? I said, yes, yes. I said, if you would get your church to meet every night for the next month or if you would establish a prayer meeting every morning at six o'clock or five o'clock and pray every morning for revivals, I said, I believe that revivals will come. And these two precious men of God broke out in hilarious laughter. Well, they just broke out uproarious in laughter. Before all the other people and they just laughed and laughed. And you think, you would be thrilled to have these two preachers who preach to you at New Day. One of them today is the leader, president of one of the leading Christian Bible schools in America. But the fact was, if they'd been honest with God, they could have told me we couldn't even get anybody out for an early morning prayer. I finished. And the Holy Ghost said to me up in the island of West, in the last group of islands in the island when I was a boy, Go to Russia. I finished my meeting, said, I'm sorry, I can't carry on, the meetings are over now. It was a campaign for all the churches on the island. And I said, no, the meetings are over and I'm going to Russia. And I remember that as I was on the vessel at 2 o'clock in the morning to go back two days on the ship to my home in Glasgow. An old brother, an old deacon of the Baptist church came to me. And he said, Jimmy, my boy, God bless you. And he says, I raise my hand to heaven and to God right now to tell you, I'll be praying for you. He had been a ship captain, sailed the seven seas, but now he's, now he's, I'm retired. And he says, I'm shutting myself out on this lonely island of a thousand people for the ministry, or 1,500 people for the ministry of interfaith. And he said, Jimmy, I'll be praying for you hours every day as you go to Russia. And I, my brother David, now in heaven, said to me when I wrote him back about the revivals God has given us and meetings go on all day and all night. He said, James, I believe it's coming because of Pastor John Smith in the Westley Island. Because he's been writing to me, he's praying some nights all through the night for you for the rising sun. Many are bitter today in asking God to do this. I will yet call it the inquiring of the house of Israel to do it fast. Let us pray. O God, if there was any time in our nation when we need to be so desperate, it is now. And yet, Lord, the vast majority of thy dear children are fast asleep in God. And though, O God, our calling to being into existence, conference at centers like Mary's and camp meetings like many others for the purpose of calling thy people back in repentance to thy Father. We thank thee for the sound of the wind among the mulberries. We thank thee for the blessed men of God and women of God your strength. He is both young and old, pastors and others. O God, forgive us for our sins. O God, some of us tonight are living in great sin because we don't pray. We're hypocrites. We write about prayer. We preach challenging prayer. And we don't pray. O God, give us broken hearts. Lord, I would like to put my name in this draft tonight, James Alexander Shearer. I want to be among one of the intercessors. I want to put in my claim tonight. But you'll do this for me. Whatever needs to be done in my life by the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen. This message was preserved and made available by Revival Literature, Nashville, North Carolina. For more information, you can visit them online at revivalliterature.org.