In this sermon, the speaker addresses the pessimistic age we live in and calls for hope. He refers to the book of Revelation and discusses the possibility of a worldwide revival, known as the thousand-year reign. The speaker emphasizes the need for a genuine awakening and challenges the idea that having a little truth is enough. He also mentions the importance of confronting idols and false gods in order to lead people to seek after the true God.

Will you open your Bibles tonight, first of all, to the book of Revelation, the Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, chapter 20. I'm going to spend the time tonight, my wife said preach, I was trying to find something to preach about, and she said preach about 15 minutes. That would be something if I ever got to where I could do that. But that's her hope. A man asked me today, and he asked me many times, a question I cannot answer. Do we have any right to hope, or to expect an awakening, a turning unto the Lord in our lifetime? I'm interested in a question like that as far as this earth is concerned. I've just got one lifetime, and this is it. Do we have any right to hope that there shall be a turning to the Lord, an awakening from the Lord, and a mighty seeking after the Lord in our lifetime? The answer to that question is that no one can answer it. I believe that I'm living on the very threshold of such an awakening. But I can't prove it. I don't know whether it's so or not. It may be that the wish is farther to the soul. But I want to talk along the line of how an awakening would proceed when it does take place. I'm going to be right in the middle of the awakening that the Bible talks about, for the Bible does promise there shall be a great turning to the Lord. Bible students, honest men, are sharply divided on many of the details about how it's going to come fast and when. But there's no shadow of a doubt with what the Bible teaches that the day of glory is yet the future, that in the parlance of the streets we've not seen anything yet, that the bright day is out yonder, not back yonder, it's out yonder, that the time of the glory of the gospel and the glory of the Church and the glory of the Lord is yet future. The Bible talks of the time when the knowledge of the Lord, and in the Old Testament the word knowledge really means obedience. Men knew God in proportion as their being, and the Old Testament thinks that's still so. The knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. That's yet future. The Bible speaks of the time when men shall come and catch hold of the coattail of the child of God, and that's the way. We do know that the days of glory are in the future and not simply in the past. And while I cannot unravel the details about it, I can proceed upon a principle that I think is true, that God in spiritual things always uses the same recipe. And I want to talk about the revival that is promised, the glory that is promised, and that you make your own application for a little while tonight. If I didn't believe these things, I think I couldn't go on. I think that if you ever lose hope, you're dead. And this is a very pessimistic age. Livewire Pastor said to me the other day, he said, I guess we'll never try to have another of what's called evangelistic campaigns that can't come out. Nothing takes place. He said, just going to quit. This is a very pessimistic age. God help us. I don't mean to overlook seriousness, but God give us a hope. The Bible speaks of a time, as your pastor said in the opening remarks, we're divided about some of the things connected with the return of the Lord. I cannot speak with any authority about them. I'll let you be your own interpreter. But however it comes to pass, coming a time according to the 20th chapter of Revelation, when a wonderful thing is going to take place, it's going to be the order of the day for a period of time called in the Bible a thousand years. Whether it's a literal thousand years or not, I'm not smart enough at this time to enter into that. But in chapter 20, verse 1, it says, I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid over on the dragon that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. There are some Bible students who say that thousand years is figurative. It's a period of time. There are others who are equally insistent that it is a thousand years. It's all right with me, and I'm sure it is with you, which is right. Either way, it would be wonderful, this earth being in pretty good shape, if this earth with the people in it were going to live for a thousand years, actual, literal thousand years on the earth, with the big troublemaker, the one who blinds men to the glory of the gospel, with him bound, with him bound. Or it's just an indefinite period of time, maybe lasting a few million, a billion years, that would be all right, that would still be fine. Either way, it's a wonderful prospect. I want tonight to suggest to you from the book of Zechariah how the devil is going to be bound. You would lack, I insisted on what some people say, that you've got to have a literal interpretation of the scripture, whatever it says, that's what it means. You would not insist that the Lord is going to take a trace chain, a tire chain, tell me how long it is and how wide, that actually Satan, who is spirit, not flesh, is going to be actually his wrists and his feet handcuffed with chains. You'd lack me out, of course. So if that is not true, we would think that God is going to go about the business of binding Satan for this glorious period of time in which wonderful things are going to take place right here on this earth for a period of time. He's going to go about binding Satan in the same way, observing his law, his spiritual laws that he gives us many places in the scripture, and he never violates this principle. In the 12th and 13th chapters of the book of Zechariah, we have a very detailed description of how Satan is going to be bound. I say, how do you get that? Well, I just get it because we'd have what you call revival if we could get Satan bound. Is that right? Well, there is no way to have a spiritual awakening without binding Satan, for the one who keeps spiritual awakening from us is Satan. It's the God who has blinded the minds of men lest they see the glory of God in the gospel. If we can bind Satan, if God will bind Satan and stop him for a period of time, being the great tempter, being the great devourer, being the great deceiver, being the great accuser, being the great opposer, we wrestle not with flesh and bones, our fight is with him and his gang. That's what Paul tells us. And we ought to go to looking in this direction and praying in this direction. I want to illustrate before I read from this book of Zechariah what I'm trying to say. You'll not think me trying to sit in judgment on my brethren, but all of my life I've read everything I could get my hands on, on anything that smelled like anybody that was interested in the spiritual awakening, for we haven't had any in my day, of course. I've read magazines and books and talked with men. And I am so anxious to put in my little desk and get us to try to go in the same direction as God's people, as the Bible and as the Holy Spirit. For instance, the whole theme and scheme of evangelism and revival has since I've been a preacher, as used for its proof text, 2 Chronicles 7, verse 14. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will heal their land. Now to me, as long as we keep on looking in that direction for an awakening, we're just going to keep looking. We're not going to receive. I believe that we ought to look and wait and pray in another direction toward the binding of Satan, and God's going to use means as he pleases to bind Satan. I believe it is a caricature of the gospel of the grace of God to even intimate that saved people need to humble themselves. I believe it tears down everything for which Christ died to even intimate that God's saved people ought to pray. I may be wrong. I believe it's a slam on the gospel to even suggest that God's people ought to seek his face. And I believe it's a slam and a denial of the gospel to even suggest that God's people ought to turn from their wicked ways and that if God's people would quit being proud and get humble, and if God's people would quit living prayerless lives and go to be prayers, and if God's people would quit seeking everything else and go to seeking him, and if God's people would get out of the hogs' pen and go to living right, that then we'd have revival. To me, if that scripture describes the recipe of revival, then it doesn't mean a thing on God's earth to be born again and have Christ formed in you the hope of glory and become a partaker of a divine nature that fixes your soul that until the day you die you will love righteousness and hate sin. In the Old Testament, to a covenant elect nation, God obligated himself to bless them physically if they minded. And he says to an unsaved nation who at the same time are an elect nation and are in the covenant and have access to the blood by virtue of being in the covenant, he says to those unsaved people, you say, you know they're unsaved, Paul said so, he set the whole outfit except the little remnant. Is that right? And I think that we ought to honor the gospel and the eternal principles of God, and I think that every congregation calling itself a church is a terrible, terrible back number now unless you put your meat and bristle and muscle and tears and prayers in the direction of seeking the face of God for that which only he can bring to pass. I think the most criminal thing that we could do now is not to intelligently look to God and earnestly seek that from him, for he's the only one who can bring it to pass now, would come that which we've got to have, something that would cause men and women to start seeking the Lord. I don't believe that saved people of the 13th-century Baptist Church need to humble themselves. I believe you are humble, for salvation means the crucifixion of self and enthronement of Christ. I believe God's people are prayers, for the mark of spiritual death is prayerlessness, and I look you in the face and tell you that if you do not breathe the very atmosphere of prayer, you know nothing about salvation. You don't have to encourage the saved person to pray, but the Lord Jesus Christ went to a lot of trouble to try to get us to pray in the right direction. And I don't believe that you've got to encourage God's people to seek his face, for I think that that's what God's people spend most of their time doing, seeking his face. And I do not believe that God's people are perfect, but I do not believe they're out here rowing with all the power at their command, thumbing their noses at God and living in the hog pens of sin. I do not believe it, and if that's Christianity, I don't believe that, do you? I don't believe it. So our old pattern of revivalism is built on a salvation that doesn't save. We include those people. They're saved, but they're not humble. They're saved, but they don't pray. They're saved, but they don't seek God's face. They're saved, but they live wicked lives. Don't believe it, do you? Don't believe it. That's not the recipe for revival. The book of Zechariah describes a revival that's going to take place among the Jewish nation. We're not Jews, but I think that we'll have it in our day. And if we don't have it in our day, we'll have it sometime. It's going to spread all over the world. This will be the only worldwide turning to God of what we call revival, the world level experience. And the principles, the things that are brought to pass to bring this great turning to God, as prophesied will one day take place among the Jewish nation, I think outline to us our hope. We're going to have just as much of an awakening in our time as four things are brought to pass in our time. Let's notice them. I'm not going to preach on them. I want to give you the outline. I'm trying to instruct you. I'm dead serious. I'm not a pessimist. A pessimist is a fellow who's got one eye closed. I'm not an optimist. They say an optimist is a fellow who's got both eyes closed. It ought to be realized. I am getting awfully tired of us people saying we've got the message. We've got a little glimmer of truth. If we have, I sure wish we'd get somebody to listen to us. I'm getting awfully tired of being a hero. I tell you, I want to reach people, don't you? I want to reach people. I believe that the principles upon which God is going to bind Satan as outlined in the book of Zechariah, come in a time when Satan is going to be bound. He's not going to be able to deceive people. He's not going to be able to blind people. He's not going to be able to oppose and accuse. The Father of all lives is going to be bound. He's going to be bound after this verse. God Almighty, as recorded in the chapter, Zechariah chapter 13, he's going to proceed to hold back the power of Satan, to bind him for a season. At that time, the knowledge of the Lord is going to cover the earth, the waters cover the sea. The glory that the scriptures talk so much about is going to be the order of the day. And in proportion, if God rocks people of their idols, shuts the mouths of false prophets, pours out his Holy Spirit, and manifests Christ in truth, that's how he's going to bind Satan. What can I contribute? There's one who hopes that he's one of God's little children in these days. I cannot, I cannot do what only God can do. I cannot promote revival. I cannot arrange it. I can't pray it down. God's going to have to do that. But I can intelligently pray that as far as I'm concerned, I shall do whatever falls my lot to do. To use a word that you may think is heretical, be in a position to be used of God and say, Lord, I volunteer to be used of you in this business of destroying the idols of the day. In the 2nd verse of chapter 13, it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord of Hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered. Boy, that'd be revival. This idol business is the most insidious, treacherous thing you'll ever look at. The Apostle Paul commended the people over in Thessalonica, called attention to his coming in among them, that some people over there turned from their idols to serve the living God and to wait, obey his stand from heaven. God Almighty promises, the day is coming when he'll cut off the names of the idols out of the land and cause them no more to be remembered. If the sins of the flesh damn their thousands and send them to hell, the sins of religious idols, those things that are dearer to us than anything else in this so-called Christian nation, damn their tens of thousands. This religious world, for it is a religious world, cannot experience an awakening from almighty God which would cause men to seek the Lord as long as men have already found them a God and get peace from him and security from him and satisfaction from him. We've got to get us some shotguns and go to killing idols. Killing idols. God says he's going to cause this to come to pass. As far as I'm concerned, while I humbly wait on God, I wish I could go up and down the land and just preach on a few little sins of the flesh. If you got mad at you, you wouldn't stay mad very long. I've found out that folks don't get very mad at you for condemning their weaknesses. But oh, my soul, not believing that what we've got in America today is Christianity, believing it's religion, believing it's very much in love with God, but the God of our own creations, the God that we've built, that satisfies and do not accuse us. I just have to keep saying I can't get the whole job done, but I believe one way God's going to bind Satan. And believing it, I'm going to spend my life doing what little I can, get me a big old axe and chop the head off of every idol I can find. As long as men worship an idol, that's what men worship, whatever it is you worship. Isn't that right? There'll be no seeking after the true God. God says he's going to do it, that I'll do it. I'll do it. I think the scripture's pretty clear. At least most of the time, God talks about things he's going to do that that don't necessarily make that he's not going to use some means at his command to bring it to pass. And I long for the day when in America we shall squarely face men and women and attack their gods and their idols and strip them and kill them, rob men of those idols that bring them satisfaction and security and leave them naked with no gods except the unknown gods. Happily, they'll start seeking after him. Second thing God says he's going to do, and I don't know that he means here that he's not going to use human means. I think the scripture's pretty plain that he does those things. For instance, for that I believe that God never saves anybody apart from the hearing of the gospel. That means, that means. And he promises here something. I won't, if he'll just let me, I don't want to be silly now, but if the Lord will just grant me a little dispensation, I hope he'll put a $25 reward on the head of false preachers and give me a rifle and I'm going to get rich, killing them. While the Lord promises here in the last part of the 2nd verse of the 13th Zechariah, God says, I will cause, also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land. Now, get the picture. He's talking about Israel, I think, and the worldwide revival is going to break out there and it's going to spread all over the world. And if we have anything like it nowadays, God's going to take the oils and God's going to suck the mouths of false prophets. What kind of people are these false prophets? They're people, according to the 4th verse, who speak, L-I-E-S-Y, in the name of the Lord. ...seek to invoke the authority and the name and the sanction of God Almighty upon their lives. Whoo! Why, wouldn't you love to live for about six weeks in America when God Almighty had gone to such an extreme action of stopping the mouths of kid-lies in the name of the Lord, that Paul and Mark, according to verse 3 at that point, were preaching lies in the name of the Lord and take him out and chop his head off because we'll let him live because he's preaching lies in the name of the Lord. Now, you can say, Lord, we sure need revival and we're praying for revival. Well, God bless your heart if you've ever been praying and looking and expecting for God Almighty to do something about the preaching of this hour. We are not going to have any awakening that will spread all over this country until men quit speaking lies in the name of the Lord. Brother, if you try to be a public preacher, a public witness, if this won't humble you, nothing will. A fellow wrote me one time, listened to me over the radio, and he said, I don't believe a thing you preach, but I can't keep from listening to you for you're the only preacher in this city that preaches like he means what he says. Well, that's something. People usually believe what somebody else tells them. It is a solemn, solemn thing. Somebody ought to believe what we preach. God help us. I can't put the false preachers out of business. All I know to do is to look to God. Lord, you do it. You're just silly if you think we're going to have a little prayer where we can turn a little recipe like to read the papers. Somehow or another we'll admit it. Satan's going to be bound. How's he going to be bound? Well, one thing at a time, let's put it tight. It'll be when God Almighty shuts the mouths of false prophets. Lord, pray to that end. Pray to that end. The Bible has a lot to say about these preachers. I'll not go into that. God says I don't send them. I don't send them. They're not for me. They speak a little thing, to cry peace when there is no peace, and so forth. Preach a broad road, send it in through with a fair wide gate. They're not mine. They're not mine. We're going to have any awakening in our day? I must look into God's longing, expecting, praying. I don't know nothing about prayer. I just know it's a child reaching out to, looking up to, sending a phone to Heavenly Father. President of the Bible College I used to teach in Croston. Dinner table the other night, with Brother Barnum. He said, isn't it true, the evangelists have an awful hard time now because some 30 years now, popular evangelists have had a message, these are his words, and used methods that would get results, whether God was in it or not. He is right. He is right. So if it's God, I can't do what God's got to do, but I can do my little bit, so can you. It's just shotgun, shooting the false prophets. God's going to muzzle them now, praise the Lord. Think of what happened in Ashland, Kentucky. Nothing but the truth as it is in God's Holy Son, ring out from every pulpit for about a month. I tell you, sinners would have to find a place to hide, except in churches, from God. There would be some seeking after him. Well, and lying already. The third thing God's going to do to buy in Satan, and this will take place, we'll have just as much awakening in our days as God is pleased to do this. He's going to pour a spirit of grace and supplication upon the people. In chapter 12, verse 10, it says, And I'll pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication. God says, I'll do it. I'll pour out upon the people a spirit they'll have a mind to, a spirit of grace, pleading, supplication. I get the impression sometimes some of us kind of think it might violate our doctrine. If we melt in supplication, begging God to do what only God can do. He says, I'm going to pour that spirit out upon the people. I better hurry up over that, or I'll have to be a member of a congregation that has that spirit. I better be as near heaven as any of us have ever been. God will bring things to pass. I'll pour a spirit of grace and supplication upon the people. And the fourth way that Satan's going to bow, and old brother Carlyle, before we get to it, you heard him say, I expect from this book, that the only spirit that can deal with the spirit of this age is the Holy Spirit. Wouldn't it be wonderful if God, and he's going to do it sometime, pours out a spirit of grace and supplication. But the last thing, how is Satan going to bow? Idols are going to be destroyed. How is Satan going to bow? Preachers preaching lies in the name of the Lord are going to be muzzled. How is Satan going to bow? Manifestation of the spirit. Only the one who's got the power to deal with the evil spirit today. How is Satan going to bow? Take the scales off men's eyes, and men are going to look upon him whom they have pierced. Verse 10, I'll pour out the spirit of grace and supplication, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced. Those people who are labeled as pre-millenarian, they believe in the return bodily of our Lord Jesus Christ before what they call the millennium tribulation. Others are not clear about that. I'm not clear myself. I just don't know. Either way, he's all right with me. But I know that right now, he's not here. You can't see him in the body. But I know that we'll have just as much of awakening and a turning to the Lord in my days as men in the gospel discover who the Lord Jesus really is. They didn't recognize him when he's here the first time. They said, this isn't he. Here it says they're going to look on him. They shall look upon me the one they pierced back yonder at Calvary. They'll recognize me. They'll recognize me. And when they do, they shall mourn for him. That word mourn there has the meaning of seeking him. Doesn't mean they'll be sorry for him. It means they'll be going all out after him. Ah, bless God, the scripture says the reason our gospel's hid. What does it say? If our gospel be hid, it is hid. What kind of folks tell me I've forgotten? It's hid the people who've been what? Blind, eh? By the daughter of this world. If he didn't blind men, they'd see the truth about Jesus Christ. They'd see the glory of God in him. That's our task. We wrestle not. Somebody said you ought to put a period there. We don't wrestle. But Paul said we don't wrestle with Henry May and somebody else full of flesh. We wrestle spiritual power. Sure we'll never have an awakening upon from man discovering the truth about Jesus Christ. The only way that a man will ever discover that truth, this fact of the bodily return of Jesus Christ, I think then it'll be too late for salvation, but I may be wrong. The only way that anybody ever has, the only way is when the Holy Spirit takes the scales off his eyes and in the simple story of the gospel he sees the glory of God Christ. I can't bring that to pass but there's one thing I can do. So help me God and if you can, whatever else anybody else did while I wait and pray and long and expect for God to do mighty things in my day, if nobody else will, I'd nominate myself a committee of one, couldn't I? If I can. If you ain't interested, please God, pray for me. Oh, God to so preach and to so witness that men and women would be presented with the Christ and the truth of Christ. The Apostle Paul so many times would say, remember, Brother Mayhan, remember, don't you get all cocky around here, don't you say, well, I'm saved, glory, hallelujah, let everybody else go to hell, remember, remember the ditch you were in, remember the rock from which you were hewn and let the milk of compassion flow out from you. God knows, break up the fallow ground in your heart and humble yourself and mourn and be afflicted and get to where you can weep because the claims of Christ are ignored by blinded men. Remember, remember the years you spent in vanity and pride, caring not to care that the Lord is crucified, caring not that it was for you he died, remember, remember, remember that blind as a bat you were headed to pit long for hell, remember that Christ was presented to you in the power of the Holy Spirit at a time in such a way that in the language of the Scripture you saw him. I had a talk with your dear young pastor the day I loved him. He's been so good to me. I love him. He's a great preacher. The other preachers have multiplied thousands. We talked about the hunger in our hearts, get out of the straitjacket, break down some walls we've built around ourselves, broken hearts, not crocodile tears, stand between a blinded generation, not too proud, brother, to beg a plea to be reconciled to God. Paul said, we beg you, we beg you, in Christ's death, in Christ's death we stand here, we beg you, we beg you don't tell me about your truth. If it's kept you from the place you can be at least as humble who stretched out his hands all day long to disobedient people. We beg you, in Christ's death, be reconciled. How will we know whether we got a revival in our day? I'll close by just reading the Scripture. This is the last part of the 10th verse. They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him. That one mourneth for his only son shall be in bitterness for him, one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. Verse 12, the land shall mourn every family apart, seeking family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart, family of the house of David, and so forth, their wives apart. Men and women will have a mourner's bench in their hearts, reaching out after the Lord, seeking the Lord. I don't know whether we'll see it in our day or not, but I, Brother Henry, you won't.