Revival Forum 89 - Part 3

I can't scare them. We're prepared to die. Our folk are not prepared to live. Sure they'll come to a camp, they think, ride horses or have played tennis or some other thing. I know there's nothing wrong in that, but where's the passion? It's young men that see vision. I'm not trying to escape it. I want to tell you for God, I'm in my 83rd year now. I have a bigger fire burning in my belly, if you like, and my heart than ever in my life. And I'm determined by the grace of God to wage war. And I say I've got young men coming 300 miles to our prayer meeting, that's my consolation. I know that Manly's stirring people in his area, Bill in his area. Still, God has a remnant, but the remnant is not enough. We've got to return to the old ways. The fire has to burn. Dear God, the prayer meeting has to become the most attractive thing in the church. You fire the deacons. If they, when I went to the last church, I said, listen, every deacon has to meet me half an hour before the service, any meeting. Friday night we meet at nine o'clock and pray till midnight. You tell me about Spurgeon. Paul was showing me a little book the other day. Yes, sure, he's a great man. Do you know in all the 20 years he was in that church, he never once made an altar call? Do you know what the deacons did for him? They went in the side room where he prayed and wept and groaned before God. Every time he went in the pulpit, the deacons put their arms under his armpits and carried him to the door to get him on the platform. One old lady that visited him, knew him, told me about his prayer life. It's amazing. And no man is greater than his prayer life. I don't care how many church members he has. Somebody told me the other day, you like a favourite verse. I don't know, I'm jumping around a bit. But you know, I think the greatest honour, I don't have any doctorates, either begged or borrowed or burned or anything else. I have no degrees. You can ask 32 and still be frozen. The one thing I covet, I want to be one of the ten most wanted men in hell. I want the demons to say, Jesus I know and Ravenel I know. Jesus I know and Del I know. That's why the devils opposed him. Dear man, the last night movie could see as I was trying to come to the platform. I wish that it is thereafter. I said, you and I have one thing in common with the Apostle Paul. When in death's aft, dear Lord my wife's been to my funeral half a dozen times. I'm at my bedside. Lots of people like to see me die, but I'm not going to die, I'm going to live. They actually threw a white sheet over me and the doctor said, you won't last four minutes. And I go, I was going to die piously, and I had my hands folded. And he said, you won't last forever. Me? I said, you're talking about me. Then the doctor said, you won't. He said, by another 11 years from now you'll be crippled and paralyzed. Your back's broken, your feet are broken, your legs are broken, you'll be useless. Well I may be useless, but I'm still hanging on. But the thing is this, I've been privileged to share in prayer. And I don't remember great pulpits. I've preached some of the great pulpits of the world. I don't remember them. I've taught with great preachers. But when men have let me pray with them, I remember all of them. I can tell you how we pray. I remember manly at the, what was national conference we had in, no, when, no, when Bertha, no, Bertha Smith was there. No Bertha. Philadelphia. That night of prayer we had, we said have a night of prayer. We got in the bedroom and boy, after about 10 minutes the door kept going out. And I thought, my, I'm going to be left by myself as usual. And folk weren't going out, they were coming in. So I look around, about six pairs of legs, the guys were under the bed, the guys under the bed at that side and at this side. And we prayed till, I don't know what, two or three in the morning. And somebody said God came down that night. Well that's where revival is born. You can't schedule it. The stupid thing, we're going to start a revival next Sunday night and finish there. Who gives orders to the Holy Ghost? Sensitivity to the Spirit of God isn't there. In the middle of the Welsh revival, and remember there's a guy, 26 years of age, and he's already prayed 13 years for revival. They wouldn't allow people to photograph him. The greatest preachers in America, in England were there at the time. William Booth was there. He left his office desk to go listen to this 26-year-old guy. The greatest Bible teacher in the world was there. G. Campbell Morgan, he left his office at Westminster and came to hear this young Welshman. F.B. Meyer came from the Baptist Church. They were all flocking to Wales to hear a man who was anointed in the Spirit of God. He comes into a meeting, the biggest hall in town had 800 seats. Everyone was packed an hour before time. And in comes the young man, everybody's waiting for him to come. There's one seat on the front. He went to the front seat, bowed his head and he prayed for three hours. What do you mean? Do you think our congregation should do that? They say, he's fallen asleep. For three hours, until he felt the rich and then he stood up and preached for 15 minutes, the glory of God came down. And you know what happened? Nobody dare leave the place. He went out at 10 o'clock and prayed the whole night for the anointing for the next day. The people stayed till two and three in the morning. They did that week after week. You see, we take our little revivals to South America. What do you call him again? Swaggart went, he took the formula out here, turned it on at six, turned it off at seven. It didn't do a thing. It failed. Because it was American? No, because it wasn't biblical. Another big shot did the same thing. But the fellas having revival in South America now, I was reading one report, it said, they go to a meeting, it starts Wednesday, they have Wednesday night, they have Thursday night, they have Friday night. The people, particularly teenagers, pray the whole night through. Pray all day Saturday, pray all Saturday night into Sunday, and the glory of God fills the place. You see, you've got to get an appetite. You know the nitty-gritty of the whole thing is this, we don't know God. We don't know God. We know theology, we know about him. Why did Jesus come into the world? To save sinners. That's not what Jesus said. What did Jesus say? I'm come that they may know thee. Every man that comes in my office, and I get them worldwide, I don't know why, but they come. And I say, first tell me, do you know God? Well, I have a degree. I didn't ask you about that. Do you know God? When was your last encounter with God? When were your last prostrate in his presence? When did you last sit spellbound at his majesty? You don't know God. Because we don't know God, we don't know how to worship. We don't know how to enter into his presence. We're content to know a few theological shibboleths that other people have taught us. Dear God, one of the leading men in the Southern Baptist Church, a very dear friend of yours, I won't give you a clue after that, my dear brother, he said to me recently, he said, listen, forget our seminaries. There's no anointing in them. Those professors are teaching their lessons on Romans they taught ten years ago. You can shake the dust off them. And every year they go back and say the same thing, Romans chapter 1, and then chapters 8 to 11, and chapters to... how can men sit and hear the word of the living God and not catch fire? Amen, that's right. Our God is a consuming fire. I don't know... what do I preach tonight? I'll preach tomorrow, two of the day after. I have two more times, so maybe I'll get to preach on the incandescent man, I like that, and then on the indestructible man. You see, the blessed word of God, it torpedoes us, it says, it lies with a man of like passion. Have you noticed so often God says, I look for a man? Have you noticed in the middle of his great, the greatest poem ever written on love, 1 Corinthians 13, verse 13, he suddenly stops talking about love and he says, when I became a man. What does he mean? Tell me manly, think it over. When did he become a man? What does he mean? When did he step out of spiritual infancy? When did his parents move out of spiritual immaturity? When did that vision come? I want to preach on him one day before I go, I hope. When you were talking last night about Hebrews 11, you know, I read that chapter as I tell you, when I read Hebrews 11, I follow my place, because not one person in Hebrews 11 ever had a Bible. And when I've read all about achievements, I'd like you to...