In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the need for the church to rid itself of pride, self-righteousness, and sin in order to prepare for the return of Jesus. He uses the analogy of a wildfire that cannot be controlled because of the wind to illustrate how the church must address the pollution within itself. The speaker also highlights the example of Amy Wilson Carmichael, a missionary who dedicated her life to serving others despite her physical limitations. He calls for a revival in the church and urges believers to have a burning passion for the lost world.

The soul on fire for thee. Isn't it true in the old testament the fire and the altar should never go out? You shouldn't go up and down like that. You should have the world of flesh and the devil beneath your feet and your emotions. There's nothing less than transformation when the Holy Ghost comes in. It's a revolution. Jesus didn't come to repair the old system, he came to give us a revolution in our personalities. I want to speak tomorrow morning if any man being Christ, any man anywhere at any time, he's a new creation. If he isn't, he isn't born of God. Oh well, I'm just a woman. I haven't got much. I was speaking in Ireland with a picture of a woman behind me. Her life has just been rewritten by Elizabeth Elliot. It's called A Chance to Die. Amy Wilson Carmichael. She went from that little tin church, took a one-way ticket to India, never came back. Had a curvature of the spine. She wrestled with it every day of her life. The last three years of her life she had to be lifted in and out of bed. She was so terribly weak. But this is what she wrote. Give me a love that leads the way. This is a woman weighing then 80 pounds, crippled in bed and yet praying revival down. Give me a love that leads the way, a faith which nothing can dismay, a hope no disappointments tire, a passion that will burn like fire. Let me not sink to be a prod. On God in heaven what can you be lying on a bed? She's 350 children she adopted. She has a burning compassion for a lost world. Let me just say this again, could I? David Brainerd's dying. He was going to marry the daughter of Jonathan Edwards. He didn't get to that. Jonathan Edwards' first great-daughter, please don't go in there. His breath stinks. It's worse than a hog. He's consumed with TB with consumption. Don't go in. She went in and took care of him. She caught the germ. She died and was buried and laid three weeks after the sight of him in a grave. But just as he was dying, he took this burning heart of mine, of his, his burning vision and he threw it across the Atlantic Ocean and it landed in England. I'm speaking metaphorically. It came to a young Baptist by the name of William Carey and he says, does God still make men like that? Does God still make a man a habitation of God? Wasn't it a China man who said, I've read the Quran, I've read the Vedas, I've read every sacred book I can, but I read the Bible and then I read the most astonishing thing in, in Ephesians 2. It talks in the first verse about being of the world in the last days. It says you are the habitation of God. And he said to the missionary, are you a Christian? Yes. You're the most wonderful person in the world. He said, why? He said, you're the habitation of God. God lives in you. Does he? What do your children see when they come home? I have on my desk, I think I keep it forever, a copy of the letter of Joshua and uh, what's her name? Jonathan Edwards' daughter wrote to somebody in 1742 and she said, listen, I wish you could come to my house. My dad is a very famous man. I ride with him into the forest and he talks about God. But she said, the power in my house is my mummy. She goes into a room in the morning and she spends some hours with God. And this is a letter. She says, when my mummy comes through that door, she needs a veil over her face. She so radiates God. She's learned to gaze upon him. She's learned to worship him. And when she comes in, the whole atmosphere in the room is changed. My daddy's a great preacher, but oh, my mother, she's the very fragrance of Jesus. Does anybody think that when you've been in a home, that woman brings Jesus, that man brings Jesus? When that man spins a pulpit, there's something about him, not of this world. Well, that same God is in business now. I must close. You know, the world, a man said to me the other day, I turned TV on. He said, you know, after all this trouble with swagger, they're still talking about it. They're still cracking jokes about PTL. And they're saying such sordid, I said, wait a minute. I don't care that much what the world is saying about the church. It can damn us to all eternity if it wants. It can say we're all frauds. We're all hypocrites. We're all liars. We don't mean business. Wait a minute. I said, what troubles me is what Jesus said about the church. I ring pastors and say, I don't care what you mean. Believe in pre-trib, mid-trib, or post-trib. Do believe we're living in the Laodicean period? Certainly we are. It's laid back. Well, listen, Jesus says of the Laodicean church, you think you're rich and increased in goods. And listen to what Jesus says about the church for which he went through Gethsemane, for which he went on the cross to where the father forsook him because he became the very embodiment of sin. He goes through the hell of separation from God. He goes through the agony of Gethsemane where he says, all thy billows rolled over me. And yet Jesus says of that church that he died to redeem for himself, she's poor, wretched, naked, blind, and miserable. Okay, that's terrible. No. The last line is the worst, and thou knowest it not. Your church thinks you've got everything. Nobody knows. There's a tavern up the street. You haven't touched it. Please name it and frame it, fellows. In the very shadow of the building there are prostitutes. You're talking about prophets. We can change the history of America and the world without a penny, without anybody on TV. Let some man get so prostituted with God. He goes and says to his Senator, Senator, I'm going to stand on the Capitol steps this afternoon. I'm a Christian. I'm in league with the God that opened prison and got Paul and Silas out. We've got nine fine young Americans in those prisons in Lebanon, and nobody can pray and get them released. Forget my tongue for a minute. It was a young American mystery came in a house weeping and broken. He said, I can't believe America's where it is now. And he said, Mr. Raymond, in this last year, 1988, we had a national day of prayer. Then we had that day of prayer in Washington, the Rock Church in Dallas, not far from us. There's a hundred thousand people pray 15 minutes every day for revival. So it's a national day of prayer. You have Washington to Jesus. You have a hundred thousand praying people. And yet last year we had the greatest drought in our history. We had the greatest fires burning on the West Coast. We've got a fellow thumbing his nose to us on a little place there called Panama. And with our air force, we can't get him out. With the biggest Navy in the world, we can't get him out. We're comparatively paralyzed. So what are we praying for? Are we praying for the rest grace of America? Or are we praying for the glory of God? I think they were praying for the wrong thing at the wrong time. But there's going to come a burden upon us. We're going to be so embarrassed about our barrenness. At least in the town where you live, there should be one church where you know you can't take a man in free Sundays without getting saved. God is in residence. He may not be the best preacher in town, but there's an atmosphere. God is there. A bunch of prophets this week. Get to Washington. Tell them I'm going to stand on the steps. And 10 days from what I, my prophecy, every prisoner we have in Lebanon will be released. Now those are prophets. You know the difference between the prophets in the Old Testament and the new? The prophets in the Old Testament met the people in the street. The prophets in the new meet people in nice meetings. And they have meetings in hotels. Come for three days and talk to us. Forget it. I'm looking to see some full-blooded prophets. Men that don't want a thing. They don't want a penny. They want the glory of God. Okay. What is Jesus coming for? What's he coming for? Tell me. Begin with these. A bride. I've been to many weddings in my life. I've seen tall brides. Small ones. Fat ones. Thin ones. Rich ones. Poor ones. Little ones. Illiterate ones. But I've never seen a dirty bride. Why isn't Jesus coming today? Because the bride is so filthy. Supposing a man is here at the altar. He's going to marry a beautiful young lady. He's been courting her for years. He's saved up money. He's everything to give her. And the organ pipes out. Here comes the bride. He looks up the aisle. And she's coming down the aisle with a former boyfriend to get married. Would he feel happy? The only reason you can believe that Jesus Christ may come today is at this very moment you have on your wedding dress. You're walking in purity. You haven't got a grudge in your heart against anybody. You can say, Lord Jesus come now. Dance if you will. When did you get alone in your room and put up your hands and say, the spirit of the bride say come Lord Jesus. Not to get me out of this lousy world that's heading for destruction faster than a plane can go through the sky. But Lord your church is so polluted. I'm part of the pollution. But he says you're blind. I've finished with this. I'm a half a mile up the road from us. A man has built a little house. And I say to people, did you see that little house? No. Well did you see it last week? No. Well it's growing. It looks better. I've never seen it. I said but it's there. Well you see, I go from your house and the house is over there. I have a blind spot on my eye. I don't see anything. A man that's blind knows he's blind. A man with a blind spot doesn't know. And Jesus says of his church, this is the one that came to open the eyes of the blind. And he says my church is blind. You'll never sleep all night if you see those 5 billion people my precious brother talked about yesterday. You'll never dare to sleep before looking at rotten things on TV. Old Robert saw God, saw Jesus. 900 feet high, that's a lie from hell he didn't. Then he turned his back on him. He didn't fall at his feet as dead. He didn't cry woe is me, I'm undone, I'm unclean. He turned his back on the Christ and reached down for a million of the filthiest pieces of filthy lucre since Judas sold Jesus. Filthy lucre, filthy lucre, gambling money, tear stains, beer stains, fear stains, sin stains, and called in answer to prayer. The church is impure. You know this church could make a giant leap forward in preparing the bride. If you get rid of your filthy pride, your filthy self-righteousness, your nobility. As our brother said, when the fire comes it consumes two things here and I'll quit. Last year we had the greatest fires in American history and on more than one occasion they said we've got the fire under control. Next morning there's a new blaze, it's worse than ever. Why? Because the wind came. What happened on the day of Pentecost? A toad, what came? A cloven, cloven, cloven tongue like as a fire. Do you know why? Well I didn't know till two days ago. Because in the epistle of James it says what? The tongue is what? A what? A fire, a gossiping tongue, a criticizing tongue, a merciless tongue. And God says I'll answer that. I'll burn all the dross off your tongue. I'll burn your criticism up. That tongue of yours has been so bitter and sour. We'll start praising God in his language or an unknown language, doesn't matter. You start praying until the very angels rejoice. Until Jesus sees the travel of his soul, not in a revival in Korea but in you. O see us, O mine altar, lay our lives out all this very day to crown the offering. Now we pray send a fire to make our weak hearts strong and brave. Send the fire. There's nothing purifies like fire. There's nothing energizes like fire. And God is fire. God is energy. God is purity. God is life. I'm going to live to see meetings that beggar descriptions. I'm going to see meetings that will go on for days as they do in true revival. Some of you, as our brother said earlier, some of you used to burn in prayer. Now you burn with indignation against somebody. Now you burn with bitterness against somebody. Now you burn with jealousy against somebody. Now you burn with anger against your pastor. It's not your pastor, it's you. There's a false Pentecost in the world today. Abraham couldn't wait for God to move. So he got a woman. He tried to help God out. What's the problem? Look at the Ishmaelites. Now look at the Arabs. They've got the world a stranglehold on the world. Every time we try to help God out, we make a mess of things. The Ishmael of revival, of evangelism today is the altar call. People come forward, don't get transformed. But when he comes with burning fire, okay, again I'll tell you, he took a little Jew and he set the world on fire. He didn't ask for financial backing. He stepped on the street and every night they had Holy Ghost prayer meetings. I spent an afternoon with a very close friend of William Booth's in in 1932. He told me about 19, 1888 and 89. Do you know what happened? They had meetings. William Booth were preaching the power of the spirit, that somehow he could make altar calls. And then this Captain Russell, Major Russell I talked with said, the old gentleman would turn around and say to the platform of officers, pray. And they'd start praying. And he said nothing would happen. Then he'd say pray. And they'd duck down, get down and pray. Nothing happened. He'd say pray. And he said, Brother Ravenhill, when you're as old as me, he was 82. I said I'll never make 82 but I've made it just to tell you. And he said when the Holy Ghost got all the men at the back of that building, and it was as big as this or a thousand people, the spirit lifted them by the back of the neck and dropped them at the altar. If you saw that in your church, you'd run for help. You'd call the fire department or somebody. Friends, we're not going to have revival our way, we're going to have it God's way. He may not come in the middle of preaching. He may come in the middle of a prayer meeting. You say, well when will he come to me? When you acknowledge your poverty. When you acknowledge, he says, listen, either be a hot or cold. If you're mediocre, forget it. The church is cold. Maybe you're the key to revival in your church. I'm not going to ask you to close your eyes. Jesus didn't say to his disciples, close your eyes, I'm going to the cross, it's embarrassing, they're going to crucify me between thieves. If you're as hungry for God as I am, I walked through a crowded church where everybody knew me as a youth leader. I fell at the altar and I said, Lord make Romans 6, 7 real in my life. He that is dead is freed from sin. I had to die to ambition. My ambitions, plans, and wishes at my feet in ashes lay. It was a transforming experience. Tell God, Lord, I didn't go home. I didn't go out of Kansas without this holy fire touching me. He doesn't have to come to you this afternoon or tonight. It's this moment if you will hear his voice, obey him. Get up and come to this altar. Call on God. I don't care if you all call together. I can't live like this. Lord send the fire, send the fire, the consuming fire, the energizing fire. That fire must come.