Revival Lectures Eight

There can only be one answer to the question, why has the Church lost her power? The answer lies in the reality that the Church has forsaken the third person of the Trinity, replacing him with programs, money, and man-centered methodologies. Our reliance is upon self rather than reliance upon the Holy Spirit to empower us to pray, preach, and witness with an endowment from on high. We have grieved his presence from our sanctuaries by laughter and entertainment and by a cerebral ministry that fills the head but fails to touch the heart.

We must have revival friends to get back in touch with God, but how in the world do we get there? Our Bible holds the answer in the book of Isaiah. In chapter 57, in verse 15, we read, For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. This text speaks of the rare individual who can access and experience a thrice holy God.

Two words stand out in our text. Those two words are humble and contrite, and both of these words reflect brokenness. Humble means bruised, crushed, and contrite means smashed and broken.

Contrite has the imagery of glass being ground to powder, and we are in this state of brokenness. That's when God can mold us into the person He wants us to be, the person He knows we can be. Alan Redpath used to say, Before God can use a man, He must first smash him.

We get this same sense from Psalm 51, where David is pouring his heart out to God, completely broken over his sins. And in verse 17, he writes, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. Dimension of broken and contrite speak of utter brokenness before God.

God's eyes are continually searching the earth for those rare individuals of whom the world was not worthy. Men like Moses and John the Baptist, Luther and Knox, Whitfield and Wesley, Finney and Moody, men who live in a different atmosphere than other mortals, men who have annihilated self with the cross and whose lives are broken alabaster boxes from which fragrances rise to the heavens from the broken pieces of selflessness and self-sacrifice. Listen, friends.

God is always on the lookout for broken men. There is a story, friends, I'd like to share with you at this time for it best illustrates our subject today, which is brokenness. I believe if you want to see revival, friends, it's going to come when it comes through the desperate prayers of broken, hoarded individuals with a burden for souls and for revival.

The following true story is one of the most powerful ones I've ever heard, and I want to share it with you now. It's about the famous evangelist Sam Jones. Sam Jones was at his home in Cordersville, Georgia, when he received a telegram from Texas inviting him to go preach to the Cowboys of Southwest Texas.

Well, he prayed about it, and he got on a train and went to Texas, and for two weeks he preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Cowboys of Texas. When it was over, as they came to the end of the campaign, the Cowboys wanted to give Sam Jones a love offering. They felt the laborer was worthy of his hire, and they had received wonderful blessings from his time among them, but there was a problem.

They had no money, not a single dollar in any of their pockets, and they didn't know what to do, and they allowed Sam Jones to return to Cordersville, Georgia, with no compensation or love offering of any kind whatever. Well, Sam Jones went back home, and a number of weeks passed by, then suddenly one day he received a telegram. It was from the Cowboys of Texas.

It read like this, We are sending you a love offering, and we are shipping you a carload of Broncos. And Sam Jones scratched his head as he looked in amazement at that telegram. Oh, what am I going to do, he said, with a carload of wild horses in the small town of Cordersville? His friend was standing beside him, and he said, Why, it's very easy.

Hold an auction sale, sell the Broncos, and you'll get your money. You can get your love offering then, and put it in your pocket. Well, Sam Jones thought it was a good suggestion, so he held an auction sale.

He sold the Broncos, all except one. He kept the finest-looking Bronco for his son. He wanted to give that Bronco to his son as a gift, and that's what he did.

But the son had never in his life been on the back of an unbroken Bronco, and Sam Jones wondered what he could do. He called the cowboy to him, who had brought the carload of Broncos to Cordersville. He said, Will you take this Bronco? Will you break him so that my son can ride him? Yes, sir, said the cowboy.

I'll be glad to. How much will you charge? Fifteen dollars, said the cowboy. All right, said Sam.

Take him away. The cowboy disappeared with the Bronco. Two weeks later, he came back.

Is he broken? said Sam. Yes, sir, he's broken. Can my son ride him in perfect safety? Yes, sir, your son can ride him in perfect safety.

All right, here's your fifteen dollars. The father thought that before allowing his son to ride the Bronco, he better mount himself and make sure that the cowboy had broken the Bronco. He started toward the Bronco.

The cowboy came running up, waving his hands in alarm. Why? said Sam. What's wrong? What's the matter? Oh, said the cowboy.

He's only broken on one side, and you're mounting from the wrong side. Oh, said Sam. That will never do.

My son might make a mistake. He might mount from the wrong side. How much will you charge me to break him on the other side? Fifteen dollars, said the cowboy.

All right, said Sam. Take him away and break him on the other side. Well, another two weeks passed by, and again, the cowboy came back leading the Bronco.

Is he broken? Said Sam. Yes, sir, he's broken. Both sides? Yes, sir, both sides.

Your son can mount him with perfect safety from either side. All right, said Sam. Here's your fifteen dollars.

Well, I like that story, friends, because it's so true. You know, the average Christian is only broken on one side. He'll do this, but he won't do that.

He'll go here, but he won't go there. He'll give God just so much of himself, but he still holds something back. He's like the Bronco.

He's only broken on one side, and he wonders why God doesn't use him more. He doesn't realize he's only broken on one side, and God can't trust him. God cannot rely upon him.

The man God uses is the man who's been broken on both sides. A person who knows brokenness is a person who knows God intimately, and God will use them greatly for his glory. Oh, let us pray.

Oh, great God, how I want to know you more, Lord. Oh, how I want to be used of you more. Great God, I want more of your spirit, Lord, but to get that, you have to have more of me.

Oh, great God, bring me to a place of absolute surrender where I can be greatly used of you in a mightier way. Take me gently into your hands, I pray, and place me on your potter's wheel. Mold me, reshape me into the person you know I can be.

I pray for a deeper touch of your mighty power in an anointing of thy spirit. I pray for your power to flow through me as a means of blessings to others. Let me see revival, Lord.

Let me see you bring revival in a powerful way to your people, and I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.