This sermon emphasizes the importance of maintaining the springs of revival, focusing on the need for extraordinary prevailing prayer, keeping unity among believers, and seeking God's presence earnestly. It highlights the effects of revival such as enlivened assemblies, vibrant singing, and a passion for world missions. The sermon also warns against hindrances that can cause revival to depart, including conflicts, neglect of prayer, and lack of perseverance.

To me, this subject is very, very important. I'll tell you why it's very important to me, for maybe three reasons. Number one is it has to do with God's glory, and secondly, revival is a very, very important subject to me. I'd say of the subjects experiencing the presence of God, walking in that is probably the most important subject in the Bible to me, and not just in the Bible, but in experience. I long for it. I was so blessed with what Steve Stutzman shared on Friday night of his experience and how he's just never the same. We were together Friday morning praying for these meetings, and I can still see the tears running down Steve's face and say, that's all I live for. That's all I want, and once you've been spoiled with that, and once you see it, you can never settle for anything less. You might have the Spirit of God in you, and you enjoy that sweet fellowship with God, and that's wonderful, and you have your personal times of revival with the Lord, but there's something about when he comes in a corporate way and just wrecks a group of people that is just wonderful. It's even better than when he comes and enlivens a group of people because the one always produces the other. When there's weeping, there will always be joy. Weeping endures for the night, but joy comes in the morning, and I would rather see a brief season of weeping followed by a life of joy than I would a lot of whoop-dee-doo and praise and all that, and then it's gone Monday morning, but there's something that is very important to me about this subject of maintaining the springs of revival. You know, there's been a lot of great men of God that have got a hold of the promises of God, and they've seen what God has done in days gone by, and they said, by God's grace, I'll press in for that, and they pressed in, and they see God come, and then the enemy always sets up his forces in a way he hates that, and there have been many men of God that have experienced the revival of God, maybe a mighty revival of God in their life, and then it got train-wrecked or got off course or whatever, as some of those things happen sometimes, and they were never able to recover. That's what history says. But there's been a few down through history, here and there, men that have experienced that deep, bitter disappointment, but have recovered, and they said, you know what? If it worked the first time, it'll work again, and they would dare to trust God again. If you've never experienced the deep soul pain of that, you have no idea what those men have walked through. It's not, it sounds so, it looks so good on paper. Well, yeah, they should just do that, but when you go through that deep disappointment, I'm going to tell you, it happened to me, but it wasn't quite as deep, and I recovered. It's a little like they give these shots. They give a weak medicine, and then you're inoculated for life, and I recovered, and I'm inoculated for life. I'll never give up again on God coming through the revival. What happened to me, I was a young man. I was raised in a certain local Mennonite church setting, and I didn't know any of these things. I never heard, maybe distantly about the great awakening. I had never heard of what happens when God comes down and saturates a group of people, and I went to this church, and there was a preacher there that was all excited about revival, and he infected me, and I started studying, and he had a library, a publishing business. I think I bought one of every book he had in his store. Actually I bought two, so I could have one to give to other people. I started studying, and I started breathing about what revival is, and what happens when God meets his people, and we'll talk about this a little bit more. I would like to, by God's grace, if I can accomplish this, I want to infect you with that same bug I was infected with. I would to God I could do it this morning. But, anyway, this preacher, there were some big meetings coming up, and he decided to do what we read in revival, extraordinary prevailing prayer, and we'll talk about this a little bit more, and he called a prayer meeting. He assembled, I don't know, about a dozen men, maybe a few more, and we met at 430 in the morning, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday morning, and we started seeking God together. What do you think happened? You have a bunch of people meet regularly like that to seek God. God came. First he had to deal with us, just like he was dealing with us this morning. He had to get things out of the way, but God came, and we were seeking him first for these meetings, and during the meetings we got together a little bit, and we had a nice time at the meetings, and he preached a message on the subject of the Holy Spirit, which is a very good set that has benefited many people to this day. But after the meeting, there were some of us, just a handful, that said, you know what? We're not letting go now. We've been spoiled. We are going to get a hold of this. We're going to keep meeting. I can still remember the one guy said, if we keep this schedule up, it'll probably kill us, and we said, fine. We'd rather have this and die than not have it, and you know what happened? We started meeting. We kept meeting, and then eventually they brought the cell group leaders into that meeting, and they got infected, and they moved. In that church, they had a tradition of meeting, I think, from six to seven, Saturday morning for prayer, and they moved it back to five, and God started waking people up in the middle of the night, late night, early morning, to come to the prayer meeting. One day I was coming through New Holland, and I was driving, and I was learning to be very careful about not offending the Spirit of God at that time, so I was not dipping through New Holland, and probably was just, you know, enjoying the presence of God, and this car comes out around me, double-sided line, right down Main Street, and passed me. He didn't know who I was, and I looked over, and here was a brother from the church. You know why he was in such a hurry? Because he wanted to get to the prayer meeting, because God woke people up out of a dead sleep, and that prayer meeting swelled to like 150 people at five o'clock in the morning. It was a beautiful thing. They couldn't all meet in one meeting, so they broke out into different meetings, and God was there, and I, as a young, idealistic person, studying revival, I just reached down and pulled my seatbelt tight, and I said, here we go, and all of what we heard this morning about coming, meeting God, coming to our people, was already being prophesied just like that 15 years ago, okay, or 14, or however many it is, and I was right there just like you saying, it's going to happen. It's going to come, and it was coming, and God would have been glad to bring it then, but God will never trust His spirit to our program. He is not here to put an engine under our hood as in when we're trying to control it. He says, no, I will be both the wind and the captain of this ship if it's going to sail, and some men made some mistakes, and I don't fault them. I've made plenty, but it was designed to take us out, and they, in a good heart, tried to replicate what happened Saturday morning, Sunday morning in church. I understand their mood, and it was a good desire, but you know what happens when you put your hand on the ark, and it was over just like that. What happened in their good heart to do that? Some other brothers recognized the flesh in it. Maybe they had their flesh on their side, and they rose up against it, and first what God does when we make a mistake like that is He pulls back, just pulls His presence back a little bit to see what we'll do. He doesn't immediately write Ichabod. He just pulls back, and He tries men if they're going to trust in the Lord with all their heart or if they're going to lean on their own understanding. What should we do when we feel the presence of the Lord pull back? What should we do? We should stop. We should say, what is it? Why did, why is God offended? Why is the Holy Spirit, this gentle dove, why is He fluttering backwards? And when we do that, and we as humble brothers come together and say, let's seek God. We did something wrong. You know what happens? He comes back, and then He knows He can trust us, and that's when things really happen. But in this case, He pulled back, the brothers went, and this is the number one tool the enemy always uses. I could sit here and tell you stories all morning, I'm not going to, about how the enemy uses wedges. Between always the brothers at the core. It might just be the three or four praying. It might be a half a dozen leading out. He goes for that circle, because if He can split that, it's all over. It doesn't matter how enlivened everybody else is around the rest of the circle. When He got that, it's over. And He knows it, and He studied it well for a thousand years, or a couple thousand, whatever. And that's what He did here, and these brothers went, and there was strife, and that gentle dove will not abide strife. That's why there's churches around that have not known the presence of that dove for generations, because they're always striving. They're always trying to be right. Our own people, we have this desire to be right. It's not all wrong, but it's certainly not all right. It's good to want to follow the scriptures. It's good to want to be right with God, but it's not good to rule over my brother. It's not good to judge my brother. It's not good to all these things. You know, this morning, as I was here, I was thinking of all of you that I've been walking with in different circles and settings, and whatever, and we've all got just a little different. We've got vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and whatever else here. But how, as we've chosen to focus on Christ, and I'm telling you, I'm from the Mennonite culture, and I've walked with some of these brothers from the Amish culture, and we've had our moments behind closed doors, and they will all agree with it. We've had our disagreements, and what in the world is he thinking, and all those things. But you know what? We made a commitment in our hearts. We aren't going to chop each other. Let's make some new mistakes, like one brother says. We've done this for a couple hundred years, and why just do that again? And so, what were you saying again, brother? Try that one more time. Let me go home and pray about it. I'm not quite sure I understand what you're doing, but okay, you're not my servant. I trust you to the Lord, and God has been pleased among those brothers to bring brothers together where the fire has stayed, and where revival has been maintained to a level. We want to talk yet more about what he wants to do, but that's why all of you are here this morning, because brothers chose not to chop. There would be no meeting here this morning if that had happened, five, three years ago, whatever. And so, we want to talk about maintaining the springs of revival we have, because number one, we don't want the spirit to depart in our midst. I'm talking now, especially in a corporate sense, and what does it take to, like the East African revival, have God stay among his people in a mighty manifest presence for 30 or 40 years? You know, that's an exception. Most times, that's one or two years. Doesn't mean God's not there, but in that mighty manifest way that we're talking about, where it's fresh. Like Steve said, where the little girls just want to go experience God, and as soon as he wasn't there, they're like, Mom, let's go home. God's not here. Was God there? Well, he was. He was in some people's hearts, but not in that way. And that's all we want. That's where people are going to come in, and they're going to say, God's in the truth. That's where we're going to come in, and we're going to be afraid to countenance sin, because God's there. You can't hold on to sin, and the presence of God will show you up. We can preach about holiness, and sinlessness, and lots of things. That's all we really need, and there's a place to preach about that, because all we really need is the presence of God. It can't abide there. So, we'll start with just a little definition of what is revival. We'll try to run through that quickly. Don't want to get into too much of a, you know, nuts and bolts or two, but just a little overview. What causes bring revival? I think this is very important. Often overlooked. People get very excited when God comes, but what preceded that? What caused that? My experience, and you can verify this in your own life, is God is very predictable. You can set your watch, your clock on the sunrise, and the only reason it seems different in a spiritual sense sometimes is because we don't understand and know all the dynamics. If we had all the pieces to the puzzle, I believe for the most part we could say God is that predictable, that reliable. Surely, there's supernatural where He goes above the laws of the natural, certainly. But even that, there's a certain understanding that the spiritual person will get as they walk with God. Does that mean we totally understand Him? No. The fact is, we spend our lifetime understanding God. And there'll be times when we just, we don't have all the pieces, and we scratch our heads and say, Lord, You're predictable, You're understandable, but right here I don't understand Your person perfectly enough, and it seems like You sprung a surprise. I had such a situation with studying revival history. The one revival that's probably, possibly the most important to me is the Lancaster Revival in 1951. Why? Because it happened here. Why? Because it affected our people. Why? Because God was doing something back 50, 60 years ago that He wants to do again and take to a whole new level. Why? Because it also eventually departed. Okay? And this was the one revival that I could not study, couldn't find extraordinary prevailing prayer. And I thought, wrongly in my mind, that it just must be an exception. No. It was no exception. Eventually, one of my friends, he was a bit of a, he likes digging through things, investigating things. He went down to the Mennonite Historical Society down in Lancaster, went back through all the back issues, and he found it. He found, and we'll talk about it this morning, he found the prayer meeting. There was one. In fact, in his words, he said, it wasn't even about the evangelist, it wasn't even about the preacher. He just had to show up. It was already happening, and of course God had prepared His vessel like He always does, but any old donkey could even show up and they would have had revival. God can use anybody. What causes bring revival? Because, why is that important? Because if we know what causes and brings revival, is God a respecter of persons? No. Surely He has His time. Surely He has His ways. But what's our part? To find out when He's going to arbitrarily trump our will and make us pray? No. That's, God does His part. He does His drawing. It's this thing that we cannot fully understand, but yet we have our choice. And yes, He knows what our choice is, and eventually you get around that circle enough and you say, you know what, my mind doesn't quite understand it or follow it all out. It's too big for me. But our part is to turn ourselves to Jesus. And my people, which are called by my name, humble themselves and pray. Turn from their sin. I will hear from heaven, heal their land. Okay. And then lastly, we want to talk just briefly about what revival brings and what causes revival to leave, which I already talked about a little bit. Okay, we're going to move a little quickly here. That seems not. Let's try it again. Oh, we're pretty far down through now. Let me get back. So it just doesn't bring those two up. Well, I can talk about it. I know what it is. Okay. The picture that's missing here is a list of revivals that, to be able to list all the revivals is to be able to list all of God. You can't do it. But some of the major ones, it's amazing. From down through, I started the list at I think around 1100 or 1200 AD. How many times God has shown up on the scenes of human history and done something mighty and new where God was moving. One that many of us are familiar with is what is often called the Anabaptists. What is often overlooked is looked at what happened among that people group that affects the revival, but actually what was happening in the presence of God. There were some places where that movement was called prophetism instead of Anabaptism. Did you know that? They were prophets. You can read it in the martyr's mirror. It's voluminous reading and sometimes through all the sorting you can miss it. How many of you have read the martyr's mirror front to back? It would be interesting. It would be worthwhile. God's written it in blood, if you will. Not the martyr's mirror, but the lives. There was a situation where somebody was a before judge. This judge was an unjust judge. He was giving a false judgment. He said, I cite you to appear before the judgment seat of Christ three days hence. Immediately after that trial, the judge fell into a raging fever and three days later on the nose died. But we think that Ananias and Sapphira just happened back in Acts. Another place they were walking across the bridge to their execution. They said, this bridge will no more carry foot traffic. A week or two later a storm came in and took the bridge out. And many such things. Some of you are familiar with Hasselbacher, that his head jumped into the hat. Many, many supernatural stories. People raised from the dead with, I think it was Pilgrim Marpeck. And things like that that we don't even, I don't know. I'm not sure why we don't know better. Except that maybe it's indicting to us. Maybe it's incriminating to us. Because if they had that, and that wasn't just confined to the first century. Then maybe we're supposed to be walking in something. And I don't want to say just maybe, but down through and God has not confined himself to any group of people. And I wish I had the chart, but it has all these different places all around the world. Over in Wales, Scotland, England. Different places in England. Different people groups in England at the same time. God didn't say, well I'm just trusting the Plymouth Brethren in this era. No. Right up at the same time was Charles Spurgeon. Same time and God was doing mighty things in both of them. And here in America too and on up through the 50's. There was a very mighty outpouring in Hebrides Island in the 50's. And Charles Finney, 100,000 people I think that was the next. A lot of circuit riders. Most of us don't know how much the circuit riders, which a lot of them were affiliated with the Methodist people. How much they impacted this country. Incredibly. There's a book I recommend to all of you if you can get your hands on it. How the Circuit Riders Saved America. And it documents very clearly those men had far more. Listen to me clearly. Far more impact on American law and culture than the Founding Fathers ever did. Far more. And we always go back, well the Founding Fathers this and that. Most of the Founding Fathers weren't even born again Christians. Ben Franklin himself said of George Whitefield. I'm afraid to go listen to him anymore because if I do I might get converted. And we say Ben Franklin's great. No, he was a fool. Now he had wisdom that came from God and put in his shoe leather. I'm not saying that. He was totally, there was wisdom there. But in that area he turned his back on God for the things of this world. We should not lift that up as an example. We can learn from the rest of his things. We don't need to trash him totally. Of course not. But the circuit riding preachers that bore the cross and the heat and the toil and tears. So that people would live. Whenever there was a new settlement they wanted to get to the end of the wagon tracks right behind the wagon that went in. To preach to people about their soul. To preach to people about God. And God came in some of those meetings in those early days in mighty ways. Again, I'm just hoping to give you something to give you appetite. We cannot talk about all these things. It would take us days to talk about them. Charles Finney. 100,000 people has been reported plus that came to Christ through his ministry. Very simple man. He was a lawyer. But God used him in a mighty way. But you know, the day Father Nash died. Father Nash was a, a lot of people don't know. Upstate New York is where he came from. And he was an intercessor. He would go ahead of Finney. Just like it says in the gospels that Jesus sent the disciples into those towns whether he himself would come. Father Nash would go ahead of Finney. And sometimes with a few men. And they would pray. And they would shut themselves up praying fast. Until God came down and broke through in that area. And of course Finney just, he was like the combine. He just came in and gathered up the souls. And it was wonderful. But the day, the day or within a month after Father Nash died. Finney finished his public ministry and went to work. I think it was at a college. He didn't travel around anymore. Because I think he knew he was done without a Father Nash behind him. That's my thought. Again, just studying things. I do want to talk about this one. How many of you have heard of Jeremiah Landfear and praying revival of 1857 and 1858? Yes, Brother Todd. Maybe one here. Young man in New York City. Distressed about. Well, it's not the first time people have been distressed about the affairs of this nation. Things weren't as particularly low up. And he decided to announce a prayer meeting over lunch, the noon hour. Get a few businessmen together at a certain church or building, wherever it was. And the turnout the first day was just terrible. It was not good. But God's gone under his heart. And God started coming. And it grew very rapidly. And soon there were people meeting all over New York City for prayer. Not just in one location. That particular location grew. And then it grew to even further. And I don't know why this. These are missing some pictures. But it's okay. I'd rather not be tied to that anyhow. But all across America you had this. Any big city, the same thing was happening. In fact, it was reliably reported that you could get on the train in New York, headed to Chicago, and any town along the track between New York and Chicago, any weekday you could get off and find a prayer meeting. And brothers and sisters, what I want us to see is let's don't bash the Supreme Court. Let's don't talk about how bad all these things are. It's been here before in different forms. But God, but God. And do you think that if there was a prayer meeting in every town, every weekday between Chicago and New York City, that it would have an impact at least on that region? Let alone the nation? Of course it would. And one young man, Jeremiah Lanphier, let out in that just to believe God. Today hardly anybody even knows his name. You know what? It doesn't matter. But I tell you who knew his name. God knew his name. And God still knows his name. And he knows those men. Another young man, 12 or 13 years old, I believe. I don't remember the exact age. But he's a young man. He got a vision for his country, the country of Wales, which ironically is where my wife's people are from. My wife was a Jones. He got a vision for his country and he started praying. And people around him, they didn't, just like me, they didn't know the histories of revival. They didn't know those things. They thought this guy's nuts in the head and said just as much sometimes. He went off to college praying, praying, praying. And it's a wonderful study of his life. His name was Evan Roberts. And in college or Bible school, God sent him back home to his home church. And he asked the preacher if he couldn't address the young people. And finally, at some obscure midweek service, after the service, the preacher left his fan up and shared with the young people. And God came. And the Welsh Revival broke loose. And, yes, it wasn't the only place that God worked. There was other people, but Evan Roberts and his sister and some other young people were one of the main leaders of the Welsh Revival. I think he was 23 years old, 22 or 23. He prayed for 13 years. And God met with him. And, again, 100,000 professed conversions and missionaries sent out all across the world, full-time missionaries. I think somebody said 2,000 or 3,000 reliably reported, 2,000 or 3,000 full-time missionaries went forward out of that revival. One of the things that's the most important or very important thing that I remember about the Welsh Revival is somebody, there was a great leader, a doctor coming down, I think, from England. Anyway, I don't remember how it was, but there was people coming. They said, Well, how will they know where to get off? Oh, they said, Don't worry. You'll be on the train. All of a sudden, you'll feel the presence of God. You'll know you're in the right area. Could God say that about your group, about your community? That is what we are asking for. That is what has not yet happened. It's okay. We don't need to condemn ourselves, but it should give us a thirst for something beyond that. If you want to give somebody directions to the fire company, where the meeting is, you say, Oh, you just go down 340, and when you feel the presence of God, just pull in. The only people we can trust with anything like that is some very spiritually sensitive people to God's voice. And even then, would He tell them to come or when? I hope He would. I believe God has told some of you to come here. But you see what I'm saying. It's when God moves in an extraordinary way, and there's such a baptism of His presence that it shuts the bars down. And in the Welsh Revival, can you imagine Super Bowl being canceled because there wasn't enough people to come? Their national sporting event, they just, they said, You know what, this year we'll scratch it because everybody's over here. And they weren't at the churches to watch the Super Bowl. Did you get that? Because the main show was on, and it was God. Praise God. You don't have to preach about sports. I'm not against an occasional good message to preach about why sports shouldn't be our idol and things like that. But when God shows up, people leave their chaff behind. And if they throw a football sometime on a Sunday afternoon, nobody cares. Because it's not going to keep their heart. Because God's there. And they laid off. In Wales, I believe, I don't remember, it was well over half, it might have been three-quarter of the police force because they had nothing to do. 1985 in Nebraska was known as the Rancher's Revival. They had a problem. When God came to that railroad, it was a railroad area, and a lot of railroad workers didn't mind relieving the rich railroad of some of its extra liabilities and possessions over a period of time. Namely, they stole things. But when God showed up, there was so much stuff came back to the rail yards and to the stations, the rail property from the surrounding people that worked for the railroad. They didn't know what to do with it. They had this big pile of stuff. What should we do with this? Same thing, God showed up. We're not talking about, are you hearing me, brothers and sisters? We're not talking about a nice weekend. We're not talking about, oh, we really had a good week. That's wonderful. That might be steps warming up the path to revival. But I want to make you thirsty for something more than most of us have ever seen. Some of us have gotten little glimpses, little down bends here for just when God came in. And everybody, I told you that story earlier when God cleared the deck in this meeting. And you know, I don't know what all your people are, but most of us German people, the Mennonite people, we're taught to kind of control our emotions and keep it muted down. And everybody was doing pretty good. You could hear the sniffles all across the congregation until two-thirds way back one young man lost it and just broke out in wails. I mean, he was a mess and he just went right across because everybody else lost their brakes. That's right. Praise God. And there was no band playing. I'm not against. I love what God did this morning, playing some music, some singing. That's wonderful. But at that point, it was nothing but dead silence. And when God came through there, just the front of that, I can still see an old white-haired older brother. So the preacher's done. He has his head in his hands. He's sobbing. And by the way, might I add, not that it's so important, but the challenge was about meeting the rising threat of Islam and that we're afraid to die. He said, when are we going to be who God called us to be, just like what you shared? Okay. And the preacher sat down, buried his head in his hands, and I still see this old gentleman, dear old preacher, stands up in the front and he said one word. Just went like this, he said, come. And there was no place to kneel in the front of that auditorium. It was back the aisles and it was just, everybody was, if I can say, a snotty mess. A beautiful mess, actually, when God comes. This young man, he's not quite so young anymore here in this picture, is one of my favorite studies of men God used in the revival, and I'll tell you why. Jonathan Goforth came from the Presbyterians, and I don't know how many of you know the Presbyterians, but one of the things about the Presbyterian mindset is that God is sovereign and he's in control and he does what he will in his timing, just to super simplify. And it's true, in its own way. It doesn't get out of bounds with all the other parts of God's truth, but that's where he came from. But you know what Jonathan Goforth believed and taught? God is always willing for revival, and the time is now. That was what he taught, everywhere he went. And let me ask you, take a guess, what percentage of the time do you think he had revival when he came into an area? Almost 100. There was two recorded places he didn't have revival. The one, they ran him out of town, so it's kind of self-explanatory. And the other, if I remember the story right, they wouldn't allow confession of sin. So, they tied God's hand, God said, no, you tie my hands, I won't come. But he led out in that way. And I'm not saying God always uses every method and means the same, surely not. But Jonathan Goforth said the time for revival is now. I'll talk yet about Hebrides revival in 1949. Let's see if this picture comes up. Yes, it does. There's Scotland right here. And right here is the Outer Hebrides, the islands. And this is a very, it's a little bit like our people, a very, it's own subculture, a very preserved people. They have their own language. It's a very thick dialect. It has English mixed in it, but it's its own dialect, Gaelic. And so it was. And God sent some people to praying. Among them, two older ladies. I think one of them was blind or could hardly see. And they started praying. And God started meeting with them. And then God showed one of them, one of those ladies or somebody else they were praying with a vision of a man preaching. And that man, the vision which they had never met was Duncan Campbell. And that's who I had on the screen here just a minute ago. Right there is Duncan, man of God. And Duncan, I think, had some connections with the Keswick Convention, if you ever hear that, a group of people that sought the Lord in those days. And anyway, they sent for him. And he said, no, no, I can't come. I have another assignment. And he had some other assignment, but God canceled that. And because of their prevailing prayer, he was coming. He came. Revival was already happening when he got there. I've heard some messages that he's preached because it was just over the time they were starting to record such things. And he said, I did not bring revival to this. The island of Lewis is a big one up on top. I didn't know it was here when I got here. But a very interesting thing, I think it was in Lewis, in North Lewis, up here, there was a different group of people. Let's say, like, we might think of Mennonites and Amish, or even, let's say, maybe Mennonites and English, or American. And they had a very different understanding, a different denominational mindset. And somehow or another, this came out that Duncan Campbell taught sinless perfection. And they were not about to get anywhere too close to that. And Duncan says, I never taught that. Only that a man could live above sin. He could have power. But that's what they heard. And they shut all their doors to the revival. Now, remember back to Jonathan Goforth, I talked about the two times. Well, here, even when they shut their doors, God broke the doors down. I'll tell you this story. Duncan Campbell decided that, through prayer or whatever, to go up to, I think it was in a barn, they called it a mass, up there to have a prayer meeting. And he took this blacksmith along. It was not a very educated person, but he was a person of prayer. If I remember right, it was about 2 o'clock in the morning. They were praying, and Duncan Campbell looked at the blacksmith and said, Would you please lead us in prayer? And the blacksmith lifted up his hands. Remember? The time for revival is now. He said, God, if you don't come through, then your word is not true and you're a liar. In his thick Gaelic accent, he said these words. And while he was wrestling, if I can say, alone with God, yes, he had men around him, but it was him and the Lord and he was having it out. There was no, you can't go copy his prayer. It ain't gonna work. It's gonna have to be you and God. Because lots of people have tried it and that's what they've gotten to, just a copy. But all of a sudden, there was an earthquake. And people ran out of the house and said an earthquake. And Duncan Campbell said, I had my own thoughts about what was happening. And he remembered about when they prayed and the place shook. And instantly, all over the area, lights started coming on 2 o'clock in the morning. People being overcome with their sin in the presence of God. Coming out of their houses and they went to the only place they knew to go, which was the church, of course, which was locked. And so, they had the meeting on the outside of the church until somebody came and opened it up in the middle of the night. Isn't it wonderful when God is your marketing agent? John Wesley used to say, catch, you never need to advertise a barn fire. Catch on fire and people will come and watch you burn. And that's what happened. And the man that was in charge of the police station had a reputation for godliness of some sort. And they soon got a telephone call. There's a whole group of young people at the police station that are on their knees. Remember, the middle of the night. On their knees wanting relief from their sin. Isn't that wonderful? And people don't know where else to go so they go to the police station. Because they're supposed to represent law and order, right? And so they, I think, brought them over to the church. I don't remember if it was in Hebrides or in the Welsh Revival, but God sent one of them to a dance hall on the way home from the meeting. And the young people were having a party and you know, how all those things go, music and everything going on. Totally, God was not in all their thoughts. And he walked in and he took over the dance hall with the Spirit of God and the Word of God and preached to them and they all got on their knees and repented. Tears running down their eyes. And there was among them a prize fighter and he heard what was going on and he was afraid if he stays around this thing he's going to get converted so he took off running for the mountains to get away from God. You think it worked? God caught up with him before he got there or when he got there. Beautiful stories. This is the one I talked about earlier. East Chester Street Mennonite Church right down here in Lancaster. Used to have, used to be involved in Lancaster Children's Ministry and had classes there. And it started in one little room, one little Sunday school room, a little prayer meeting. And before, before the revival happened it had spread to where the entire auditorium was packed full on weekday mornings with people coming to pray. And they started revival and some of you know the rest of the story. It created such traffic jams in the city of Lancaster that it was a problem and they had to come up with another plan so they moved it out to what used to be the old Lancaster airport grounds and they had it there so they could handle the traffic outside of town because it was such a mess. Thousands of cars all over Lancaster trying to get to pack out this place. And the final night of the meetings there they had between 15 and 20,000 people and I listened to those messages. I listened to them because they had Amish there. Yes, in 1950. They had Beachy Amish. They had Methodists. They had certainly Mennonites because Bronk was a Mennonite preacher. I have a picture of him here. They had all these people and Bronk would say OK, now I'm going to preach to you and he'd preach to the Mennonites and now I'm going to preach to the holiness people and the brethren in Christ. He'd hit them and he'd say to the rest of you I'm going to get you all with this. And he was not afraid to share. But I listened to that same man in Oroville, Ohio. Same preaching. Knew the Lord. And he said this. Near the end of those campaigns in Oroville and there was thousands of people that had come to Oroville. Maybe not near the size here. He said you think I can still hear him saying it. You think because 30 people walked down the aisle every night that this was revival. He said I'm here to tell you it's not revival. When I heard that I thought why would he say that? Do you know why he would say that? Because he knew. He knew what revival was and he could never be the same again. And would to God that we would not be OK even with 30 people dealing with things in their lives coming to Christ, whatever. But that we would say God must show up in His mighty presence. That's the only thing we can be satisfied with. I want to say one more thing. There's a picture of one of his meetings. My grandparents went to the Bronx meetings and got things straightened out in their life at the Bronx meetings. Praise God. And I believe some of those things passed down to generations. I'm very grateful. And I believe some of that thirst for God in my heart comes from those meetings. And I praise God for that. And there's a picture of the aerial view of the meetings. That was 1950, my brothers and sisters. How much has Lancaster County grown since 1950? Maybe 5 or 6 or 10 times in population. So let's just use conservative. 5 times 20 is how many thousand people? 100,000 people. So if we had the same version in 2015, considering the same population dynamics, there would be 100,000 people there. Can God do it again? God can do it again. I already talked about the rancher's revival. Another one happened up in Saskatoon. And one of the things about the Saskatoon revival that I want to mention is I think it started among the Baptists. And some of the Baptists don't believe in the Holy Ghost. I'm sorry if I stepped on somebody's toes. They believe in him, but not in that way. But it started in a Baptist church. And the beautiful thing is it spread across Saskatoon, Canada there, and all the churches got involved. It didn't matter that it started in a Baptist church because they just wanted to get together and experience God. And of course, some of you know the stories. And I hope in saying these stories, you realize there's many I could have reported on. Many. There's some that have had some fanaticism to them that people argue how much of it was God and how it wasn't. I'm not even going there. Really? Let's just have God. He'll take care of all that. He really will. And I guess one of the things I'm grateful of what he's doing these days among us is he is preparing people to lead, to function together. Because some of the revivals, that has been a great grief. There was people not prepared. And you know how Jesus talked about new wine and new wineskin? The wineskin broke and just spilled out on the ground. And I don't think God wants that. I remember the Lord speaking to my heart and saying, Merle, would you rather have it fast now or would you rather wait if you would have to endure the grief of watching it spill on the ground? I said, Lord, I'd rather wait. And what he was saying to my heart is, why do you think I'm working that way? Because he's more concerned about these things than we ever are. Now, I want to close this session here, this discussion, before I go on to the closing points. And why did I say 2016? Why didn't I say 2015? What's that? That's true. But that's not why I said 2016. I got a call. I've been praying for years, brothers and sisters, and some of you know this, and most of you can connect with it, for some meetings where it's just under the direction of the Holy Spirit and brothers. Now, that sounds so simple, but where it's not under a certain box or denomination that you've got to try to keep happy. Remember we were praying here about the fear of man. It brings a snare. And as simple as that seems, it's very hard to happen. Somebody always wants to grab the reins and have it under their brand or have their brand lead it. And I'm not here to speak anything about all those things, only that this has been my vision. And a number of years ago, Brother Jonas and I sat down with somebody to talk about this event and wondering if we couldn't bring some of this life that God has given us into these meetings. And I just, for myself, I said, I can't do it. I can't do it unless I know that He got the reins. Then I'll just throw my life on it. And I just got a call just this last week, and I won't go into the details, but there is going to be some meetings next summer. And when I was at the tent meetings this summer in the New Holland area, some of you know about them, the Lord put something in my heart. And I made a few calls and I thought He was saying, you know, move forward here like September or so forth, and we're almost at the end of September. And I was actually a little discouraged. Like, Lord, okay, I made the calls and did what you told me, but nothing happened. You know, sometimes it's good to be honest, but we shouldn't be, we've got to be finding the right balance and talking to the Lord. But He wants us to be honest with Him. And I said, you know, here it is, what's happening? Should I do something more? I just wait. I had plenty to do, anyhow. Sure enough, I get the call, one of those calls I made. Hey, I got together with so-and-so and so-and-so and this evangelist is coming next year, and let's get together and start praying. And it wasn't anybody that's here today. Okay? That's what gets me excited. Not that I wish I would be fine if they were here, but it was another circle. And another brother and I were laboring with him and the idea is to get together just as brothers and reach out and see how many local assemblies, pastors, other people can be pulled in. That's wonderful. That's exactly what was on my heart. What will God do out of that in 2016? I don't know. I know He wants to send a revival. I don't know if we're ready. I trust we're getting ready. I trust that we will see a mighty move of God in 2016. But I know it's near, even at the door. I know that. And I don't know if I have the verse here from Habakkuk. I don't think I do. It says, the vision is yet for an appointed time. That might sound like I'm talking out of two sides of my mouth. God's always willing for revival now. But God also has this time. The vision is yet for an appointed time. And it says, it will come and will not tarry. But, you know, that's the thought. It's going to come. Just be patient. And God is going to bring revival. And I see as these years have gone by of all the things He's putting in place successively over the last 10 years to be channels and funnels to catch what He wants to do. Am I excited about that? Yes, I'm very excited about that. But my heart is not to communicate my excitement to you. Not at all. My heart is to motivate you that when you hear in the coming half year, because there's going to be public prayer meetings, that you say, I will get up in the morning. You know what? I believe it. Because if you believe it, when's the time for revival? Now. And if you don't, we'll see. Maybe God will still, like Mordecai told Esther, you and your father's house will miss it, but He'll raise up somebody else. But I believe there will be opportunities to get together and pray and set our county on fire. And when this happens, see all these fires? When it gets enough of them in a critical mass, anybody know what happens with fire when that happens? And it also, who said, that's right, it goes, and firefighters have been trying how to figure out how to do that when it happens in forest fires and it creates its own weather system and they can't put it out. Praise God. What produces revival? We're going to try and wind this last section up a bit. Always extraordinary prevailing prayer. First He needs to change us, but also there's this partnership between man and God that He gives us His heart and we pray it back to Him and when we pray what was already His heart, His will, that He entrusted to us, back to Him, Heaven responds and things happen, God happens. And so we first line up, we get on our knees, we seek God together, we learn how to discern God's will together, we pray that will together and we see God's kingdom come and His will be done. Are we ready? I don't want to spend much more time on this. Jesse, ready? Hit this very well. Who shall stand in the mount of Jehovah? And who shall stand in His holy place? He that is blameless, or another version says clean, hands and a pure heart, who lifted not up his soul into vanity nor swore it deceitfully, he shall or might, he shall receive the blessing from Jehovah and righteousness from the God of his salvation. I don't remember if it was a Welsh revival, I think. It could have been the Hebrides, sometimes I mix those two up. But there was a young deacon that they were praying and travailing to God and nothing was really happening and he finally said these words, Lord, it seems to be so much humbug, or I don't know what word he used, to be asking for all this if our hands are not clean and our heart's not pure and he takes his hands and puts them up and says, God, are my hands clean and is my heart pure? And God spoke to him and came and just wrecked that whole meeting. Now, is that a formula? No. But it's about getting earnest with God and cleaning out and brothers and sisters, this morning, God came and visited with us. He did. There's a reason that I asked you to make a commitment with God and right here it is. Brothers and sisters, do not hold back. Clean out the closet. Like John the Baptist said, prepare the way of the Lord. Make his path straight. Create a landing strip, if you will. That's how we would say it today. A highway. Every high place brought down. Every low place exalted. Make a landing strip for God that it's a safe place for him to come. We have cleaned out. We have dealt with our issues. Why would he ever entrust us with his glory if we aren't doing what he already told us to and do what the little bit he gave? It would be almost morally wrong. And yet, in his great mercy, sometimes he still does it. And why he does those things is part of that element I talk with. I don't fully understand God always, except sometimes you'll find out back in that corner, back over there was two praying ladies that would not let God go. I know one local church that has God come time after time and after time again and knock their doors and try to bring revival and sometimes it's come for a little and then it's gone. And I know why it is. Even though they've messed everything up and done many things wrong, there's one or two ladies in that church that won't let go. That's right. Praise God. But we can each be one of those. We can. Okay. Always extraordinary prevailing prayer. If we believe this, we will get together. We can start now. We don't have to wait until the prayer meetings are announced for the 2016 tent meetings. Okay? I told you they may be announced. You may have opportunities. By all means, join in. Let's start now. I can tell you in 2003 or 2004, I heard a message and I have walked so many times. Not right this time. I believe I walked in a noble way and I heard a message on what God does when we get close to each other and shepherd each other and have brotherhood. And I went to my wife's cousin and he wasn't even from our church. He was the only person I knew that would actually do this with me. I said, can we get together for breakfast and practice this? Yeah, yeah, let's. God started working. Then eventually another young man from that church came to me and said, can we do this? And so I still see us there in our house and he's sitting on the rocking chair and I'm here and we're both awkward as can be. We don't know how to do this. And he goes, that's how he started. Well, what's God been doing in your life? And we're all just about like thick, unworked leather. But you know what? It took about three weeks, three or four weeks and God started doing stuff, cleaning us out and before long, he had his little Akron taker and we're buzzing out the road and we're going to town to tell people about Jesus. And we drive by this young old order Mennonite guy that just started coming to visit our church or something. We both thought about it at the same time. Hey, we ought to take him along. Hits the brake, just makes it in the dry wind. Up nine o'clock at night, we were not even thinking straight. Seems to me that's what they said in this book too about certain people. And we knocked on the door and said, would you come along with us to Ephrata? We're going to go in. That was back in the days when they had the little dugout down below the street. We're going to go talk to people about Jesus. He's looking and his wife was kind of ahead of him spiritually in that journey and she's, yeah, I'll take care of the children. Good, you're good to go. He's like, well, yeah, I'll come along. And he created a friendship that'll last a lifetime. And today, that brother and those two brothers are part of a church plan in another state. And praise God for that. The point is not to talk about yesterday, but to keep praying and God will move. There's another picture from the Bronx meetings. I'm going to talk just yet about the effects of revival. So, prevailing prayer. There is, it is really simple, brothers and sisters. That's about it. Clean out and pray. And it doesn't really matter which order you do it in. Pray, because then God shows up and you clean out the closets and deal with stuff and then pray. And that is what brings revival. And sometimes there's perseverance and I'm going to read just a few scriptures in closing here in a minute. A couple things I told you about, how they told them where to get off the train. Up in New England, Redfield, they had a problem in New England. And the law enforcement in New England found people laying around on the side of the road, unconscious. Okay? And they would go up and they would sniff their breath. And if they smelled like alcohol, they would haul them in. And if they didn't, they would put them in a quiet place because they knew when they came to, they would be the best upright citizens of society. People, and this happened also under John Wesley, people totally overwhelmed in the presence of God, so labored under sin that they lost consciousness. Now there's some people who just got knocked out, but some of them literally lost consciousness overwhelmed by their sin because they had come into the presence of the Holy God. And they would have visions and they would have encounters and God would show them things. And when they came to, they were full of God and nothing else mattered. You know, another effect of revival is enlivened assemblies. Singing. Many of the revivals of history have some very beautiful songs that come out of it. Beautiful singing that has maybe continued even for generations. Moravians have been an example of that. Singing, singing, singing, singing. Why? Because when Heaven touches your heart, what do you do? You get rid of your stuff. You get done with weeping and then what happens? Singing. And all of the major revivals have singing as a very important part. And lastly, I talked earlier about world missions. But it's good for us to remember these three points. Enlivened assemblies, singing, and world missions are results. They are the cart behind revival. They're not the horse. And if we're not careful, we can focus on the effects. Oh, we got revival because now we're singing. No. You have revival and then you sing. And so, just those are interesting things too. Now, the last thing I want to close with, hindrances, why does revival depart? Maintaining the springs of revival is where we started. And I think this is very important, brothers and sisters, because I have no question in my mind whether God's coming to Lancaster County. None. And I thank God just for a little treat for me this morning. Had you stand up and a couple other ones and just say, yep, Merle, yep. Yep, you heard that ten years ago. Still right on. Now the young men are saying it. Yep, yep, right there. Because sometimes when you're praying for ten years and frankly I can say I have seen the icebergs going a lot. It keeps going faster and faster and I'm very excited about that. I know it's coming. Sometimes it's just good to hear somebody that you and I, I don't think we ever talked about this. I certainly didn't have anything to do with your brother's dream. And to hear somebody else just confirm it. Yep, yep, yep. It's coming. Yep. But the thing that because I believe it's coming, I want you to know ahead of time. I want you to be there when the prayer meetings start. I want you to be there to experience God. But I also want you to know ahead of time why Revival leaves. Okay? Because why? Because we don't want Revival to leave. Don't offend God Don't go for each other's necks. That's the number one thing. Do not get into fights. And if you do, make it right quickly. Deal with it because you will find yourself on the wrong side of Revival. Keep on maintaining the springs. What happened, you get all these meetings and some men have died young, literally. They have died young, burning their physical body out. And I can't comment on that, but I also know there are men who have learned not to do that and lived a long time Certainly, I'll take either of their places. I'm not going to pick sides, per se, because they just experienced so much of God. But I must say, from my observation, the men who have really experienced God, like what we talked this morning, it enlivens you. And they've learned to listen about His stops as well, have finished well. They have finished 70, 80, 90 years old, many of them. And I'm not bringing any judgment on the rest, but I am saying this, they learned to maintain the springs. They would have their quiet time with God, even when it was, when they were up to here with things happening and the bullets were flying and everything, they just, they were like bulldogs on that thing. And I think it's also important, this also can fade, is the corporate prayer, the coming together, to just keep doing that. Oh, we have revival now, we don't need to pray for it, right? No, wrong. There's still a world left. There's still the next town over and the next one over here. The rest of America, the rest of whatever. And to keep on praying. And as long as you maintain them springs, again it's cause and effect. Water runs downhill. What brought revival, maintains revival. It's that simple. But people, the devil is very successful in putting little decoys and getting people off the course. Oh, I did have the verse, for the vision is yet for the point of time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Habakkuk 2.3 What does this mean to me? I think everybody shared that about prayer. Are you getting what I'm saying? Have I said something about prayer? That's cause that is the important thing. I want to close with reading two scriptures, yet. We'll start with Luke 11, 5 to 13. Okay, verse 5. Then Jesus said to them, suppose one of you went to your friend's house in the middle of the night and said to him, neighbor, a friend of mine is coming to town to visit me, but I have nothing for him to eat. Please give me three loaves of bread. Your neighbor answers from inside the house, go away, don't bother me, the door is already locked, my children and I are in bed, I cannot get up and give it to you. I tell you, perhaps friendship is not enough to make him get up to give you the bread, however, he will surely get up to give you what you need because you are so bold to continue asking. So I tell you, continue asking and it will be given to you. Keep searching and you will find. Keep on knocking and the door will open for you. You will receive if you always ask, you will find if you keep looking, and the door will open for you if you continue knocking. Okay, now he's saying all these things, but I want you to get what he's laying the background for in this story about the guy with the loaves of bread, with keep on knocking, keep on seeking. Is it about getting your bills paid or your car? Well, it could apply, but it's not what he's primarily zoning in on. Here's what he's saying. Do any of you have a son? He's going to give another illustration to get his point. What would you do if your son asked for a fish? Would any father give his son a snake? No! You would give him a fish. Or if his son asked for an egg, would you give him a scorpion? No! You're evil men, yet you know how to give good gifts to your children. Surely your Heavenly Father knows how to give the Holy Spirit to those people who ask Him. That, I believe, is the point of this. And many of us have experienced the presence of God. We know what His voice sounds like. Some of us have seen God come in mighty ways. But I'd like to apply this verse this morning in a corporate way. In a special presence. Even like what we saw this morning. Why do you think God met with us this morning? Do you think Jesse got up this morning, never thought about a message and said, okay, that's what I'm supposed to teach this morning. Came in here late, sat down. You think that's what happened? No. There was a preparation. He carried the message of God. There was people praying all weekend. And what's God going to do? Of course He's going to meet with His people. And that's why we had God meet with us in this way. If we want to see God come in a greater way, then we'll have to seek Him in a greater way. If we want to be able to tell people, when you're going down Route 340, right there, you know where Revive was, then you've got to seek God until He comes and rains that amount of His manifest presence in the midst. And I want to make us hungry. I want to encourage my own self this morning, not as somebody who's arrived, but one who believes and wants others to join in, wants to join in with others, that we would be so thirsty and that we would in fact press in, because He said, He promised us that He would do it. Now we're going to close with that classical verse of Revival that sometimes is so overused and worn out, and yet when it's all said and done, I can't think of a better way to say it. And that's 2 Chronicles 7. Because it's a promise, it's a commitment. This promise was spoken at the dedication of the temple, but it's not God's house, it's not the church, the family of God, the temple of God today. Yes, even the scriptures say it is. So we're going to start in verse 12. And the reason I'm starting there is just to give a little perspective. Then Yahweh appeared to Solomon and said to him, I've listened to your prayer. He was praying, and God said, listen, I've chosen this place for myself to be a temple for sacrifices. I may shed off the sky so that no rain falls. I might command the locusts to destroy the land. I might send sickness among my people. And this is in the context of God choosing people but them departing. Has God chosen through the mouth of his prophets that he wants to send revival here? He has. And if we depart, he may need to send some chastening. But, here's what he says. If I do this, and then my people wake up who are called by my name, will be sorry for what they've done. They will pray and obey me and stop their evil ways. If they do that, then I will hear from heaven. I will forgive their sins, and I will heal their land. Now, I see them, and I will listen to the prayers offered in this place. I have now chosen this temple and made it holy. My name will always be there. Yes, I will always watch over it and love it.