This sermon emphasizes the need for true revival in the church, highlighting past experiences where external efforts did not bring about lasting change until a genuine revival took place. It shares stories of God's providence and intervention in bringing about revival, emphasizing the importance of humility, transparency, and prayer in seeking revival. The speaker encourages believers to take chances for God, trust in His guidance, and seek revival through united prayer and a reliance on the Holy Spirit.

Okay, sure, okay then. Is it still on? Yeah. Oh, okay. Before the revival, I had different evangelistic teams come into my church, a husband and wife team. She was a beautiful singer. And before his conversion, his special thing was, in nightclubs, he used to stand on his hands and tap his feet on a board above his feet. He didn't do that in the meetings, but he was a good preacher. And we had one fellow come, and he was a great song leader, trombonist. He used to train a choir every night, 40 people. He'd train a volunteer choir every night, and he'd preach good messages. And so we had different people come once or twice a year. But when these people left, the church hadn't been changed or altered in the slightest. You might have a couple of people, backsliders restored. You might have one or two people saved. Maybe some people started tithing. Maybe a couple of people joined the church. But it was certainly not revival or anything like that. It got to the point where I just said, God, I'm not going that route anymore. I'm not going to try this anymore. We have to have revival. And that's really what happened there. And then we found what God could do when we got out of his way. And Ralph and Lucita were certainly prepared by God and used of God in wonderful ways. They were very transparent, too, in their testimony to the people. They never created any impression that they felt they were big shots, not at all. Sometimes Ralph might say something, and Lou might even correct them in a meeting in front of the crowd. And there's no bad feeling about that. They just did it. They were honest and humble and pliable. And it was such a refreshing thing. What happened was, actually, I told a missionary I had in my church, I told him how I felt, and he said, try and get Ralph and Lucita. And I said, who are they? I'd never heard of them. And he told me something about them, where they lived, and I got their address, and this is how the whole thing, how God put it all together. I should perhaps point out, Saskatoon, which at that time was a city of 120,000, I think it's somewhere up to 200,000 now. And I had, as I mentioned before, a church of 175 members. We were running, before the revival, we were running about 300. The church, you could pack 350 in. We were pretty well full Sunday mornings. But it wasn't revival. But there's an old saying, if you ever go through revival fire, you'll have the smell of smoke in your clothes till the day you die. You'll never forget it. You'll never be satisfied with anything less. Okay. My wife and I had flown down to South America. We had a contact who had been a Kansas cowboy. He was a missionary with the Gospel Mission of South America. And Lyle Eggleston was his name, and he was my contact. And so we arrived in Buenos Aires. It's a city of 10 or 12 million, and nobody met the plane. And so we didn't understand. He explained later that if you're right down there, you want to use a small envelope and a small stamp. If you use a big colorful stamp, the guy in the post office likes it, he'll take the letter home. So my last two letters never got to him. Somebody had taken them home. So he knew I was coming, but he didn't know when. And so there we are sitting in this air terminal wondering what to do, you know. The boy said, hey, that guy looks like an American. So I went over and said, good day. Are you an American? No, he wasn't. He was Spanish. No, we didn't know any Spanish except C. And then I thought, hey, that guy looks like him. Remember me? That's him. No, he was a Spanish guy. So we gave up on that, and we prayed. And to make a long story short, a fellow, a total stranger, he walked up and he bowed and he had me slip the paper. And on it, it said Lyle Egglestone, 35 Amblegada. That's the street where he lived. And his phone number. And he bowed and walked away. So I phoned Lyle, and he came tearing down all apologies. And I told him what happened. He said, Bill, listen. He said, I've only been here a couple of months. Nobody knows me. I said, I know that. I phoned the Latin American mission and the sailors' mission. Nobody had even heard of you. And I thought we were in a wild goose chase. But he said, who is this guy? I said, I can describe him. We were tearing all around the air terminal. We couldn't find him. Of course, there's thousands of people. It's a big air terminal there. We never did find him. So we finally had to conclude it was an angel sent from God. And then my wife and I were riding in a bus one night, and we'd forgotten to ask where to get off. And we didn't have a clue where to get off. So the bus is packed. All the buses are packed. If you get on when the bus starts, you get a seat. Otherwise, you're standing. So we're standing along at the strap for the longest while, you know, whispering back and forth, what am I going to do? I'll just trust the Lord. So we went along for half an hour, and then somebody leaned over in the dark and said, please get off at the next stop. So we did. And it was obligato, the street he lived on. A very strict, you know. So how did that happen? How did he know where we were to get off, you know? So, again, it must have been an angel, you know. So we had things like that happening in traveling in third world countries or other countries. When you don't know the language, God always comes through. Get many evidences of God's engineering and control and concern. You know, it's a wonderful thing to take chances for God. You don't see anything much happen until you take some chances, you know. And he said, prove me now herewith. God likes to be proved. Okay. I have one last thing to ask you. Could you make one statement, you know, to the young people of today that don't have a senior title? They're going in the direction of, you know, church programs and different things. What do we need to do? What do you feel that this generation needs to do if they want senior titles? One thing would be if a Christian person wants revival, it would be a good thing to try and find some friend that would want revival if they could pray together, if two people could start praying together, you know. And maybe you might get another in three and then maybe four or five, you know. And get started. Like if two of you agree upon earth as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done for them if my Father was in heaven. And the word agree there, it's a musical term, somphoneo, from which you get the English word symphony. So if two people agree together, it'll be done. But I would say find someone else and start encouraging one another and praying for revival and then try and get others in on this. In Steinbeck, Manitoba, there was a revival in the Bible college there. I was in there later on for meetings. What happened was some girls got together and began praying for revival. And then more girls and then more girls and then more girls. It just got bigger and bigger and bigger. And then the staff heard about these prayer meetings late at night and thought they'd better check it out. So they checked it out and they could see there was nothing wrong with it. It was good, you know. And so they let it go, just the girls, and praying sometimes till 12 at night. And then one day in the chapel service, God came and had a glorious revival. It swept the whole school. And they said for years after that revival, they never ever had any problems between staff or this kind of thing in the school. That was all just cleaned up, you know. So we need, we must have Spurgeon said, our system will not work without the Holy Ghost. And he was absolutely right. He knew the power of God. You know, when he started off at Water Beach, it's a small town of 1,200 people and he had a church of 40 people and every second man was a drunkard. He was 18 years of age, no training. And in two years, the church went from 40 to 400. There wasn't a drunkard left in the area. And he said, we had a Holy Ghost revival. When he moved to London, New Park Street Church, it was a building seating 1,200. They only had anywhere from 60 to 120 or so on a Sunday morning, and five in the prayer meeting. He was there one year and there were 500 in the prayer meeting and the church was packed to the doors. But he said, when I got to New Park Street Chapel, it was a small group of people who had been praying for years for revival.