Revival Forum 89 - Part 5

In the center of Glasgow, and I didn't know, they said this is Duncan Campbell, and he was always known as Duncan Campbell of the Argyle Revival, I'll tell you about that. So now he lost his anointing and became nobody. But I said to him, well, what was the condition? He had what, Revival 1949? He said, by the way, that at that time, after breakfast in the morning, they lifted all the dishes off the kitchen sink, off the table, put them in the kitchen sink, and that he got the Bible, and he read a psalm, or a psalm usually, commented on it, and the children had to memorize the, what do you call it, the, short of catechism. You see, maybe the greatest hemorrhage we ever had was Isaac Watts. He wrote, When I surveyed the wondrous cross. He wrote, Joy to the world, the Lord is come. He wrote, We're marching to Zion. Wonderful man of God. But do you know he had a catechism, catechism for children under seven years of age? And you couldn't move up in a, in a class in Sunday school until you'd memorized it. Then he had another catechism for children from seven to fourteen years of age. Then he had another catechism for people fourteen and up. What does a good book say? Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. And so I said, well, you give me the secret of revival. The seed had been in the hearts of those children for ten and fifteen years. Then the Holy Ghost comes and sends somebody along and that seed begins to germinate. The word of God is quick and powerful. Where is it? It's first in my heart. But then the Holy Ghost breathes on it. It's like I have a little spark in my heart. The Holy Ghost breathes on it. It comes into a flame. Your number one concern should be your family. I went to preach at a certain college. I had a good time. The second time I went, a guy came and he said, I want to thank you for coming. He said, God moved on my heart last time you were here. Fine. And he said, I believe in you. I said, what do you mean you believe in me? He said, because you've raised three boys that are a credit to you. Two wonderful preachers. My precious wife did most of it. I was away touring in prayer. But I spent hours in prayer for them. And my number one, even if I was in a big church in some other country, number one today, Lord, the first thing I cover my family with is the precious blood. I believe the Holy Spirit will talk to them. Dear God, when Paul was 16 years of age, he prayed more hours than I prayed. We would pray till one and two in the morning in an old part of a mansion we had in Ireland. And all the men I've known have been men of prayer. And it costs something. But you see, your ambition should be to see your spiritual offspring in your home, your spiritual offspring in the church. If I were in a church, I would have a nucleus of about 10 young men every week, and talk to them about the things of God, particularly in the life of prayer. I'd read some of the great characters that God has made, because they made of the same stuff as us. I wouldn't be bothered about a big church. Why didn't Jesus take the 5,000? He fed them. They didn't follow him. He didn't feed the 5,000 in the church. He didn't feed the 4,000 in the church. He manifested his power. He had 12, and they weren't all good. Thomas doubted. Look at the mess that Judas made. But prayer is the secret. You know that. You make up your mind you're going to give time for prayer. The devil will fight it more than anything else. Your phone will ring off the hook. Visitors will come. Somebody will say, come and preach at our church. Why do you go conduct a revival in somebody else's church when your own is dead? That's nonsense. Brother Ravenhill, if you knew that God was going to remove you from the scene, and you only had one message left that you could communicate to the church in North America, what would that message be? What's the burden of your heart right now? There would be two things. Number one, the sad thing we don't know God. Jesus, I am come that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. And if we know God, we don't have to know anybody else. If we don't know God, we need to know everybody else. The other thing that's obscure, I'm going to use it when I preach on the indestructible man. We've lost, totally lost sight of the judgment seat of Christ. Totally. Suppose the Lord is coming today. As you as a pastor, would you welcome him and say, Lord, my church is the cleanest church in town. We're without spot or wrinkle. We've dealt with divorce. We've dealt with drunkenness. I have the most godly bunch of deacons in Texas or in America. I have the finest group of young people. Lord, I've spent my life preparing the bride. Why doesn't he come? Because the bride hasn't made herself ready. She's filthy. She's unclean. It isn't rape and all the damnable things in the world that gives away the church is filthy. He's not coming for a bride. Therefore we have to revive the revival of true holiness. Bill, I believe with all my heart. You do, I believe too. Manly. Holiness has to come. There are three things missing in modern preaching. Immensity, intensity and eternity. There are two things missing in the pew. One is integrity and the other is honesty. But you read about those old Puritans. We had immensity and intensity. There was no dodging the word of God. You felt you were almost being crucified with it. It's the word of God that's living, as my dear brother said last night. It's not an illustration. You build a document on it, you can't do that. These guys that have all these visions, they trouble me in one sense. You have a vision, it doesn't help me. It's my personal relationship with God. And as you taught last night, I was thinking how often I've preached on that chapter of Manly. And it's a wonderful chapter on faith. And the key in that chapter to me is Hebrews 11 6. How does it begin? Yeah. And he that cometh to, who? He that cometh to God must believe that he is, that he is what? That he is able to save to the uttermost. That he's able to keep you from falling. He's able to make you pure in an impure world, as I said the other night. The greatest miracle in the world is God can take an unholy man out of an unholy world, make him holy, put him back in that unholy world, and he can walk in truth and righteousness from here to eternity and walk through hell. Jesus didn't die to save us from sin. He died to us too. What did he die for? To get a peculiar people unto himself. You know, many of people in your church want to be good, there are not many want to be holy. Who wants a drunken husband? Who wants a rotten unfaithful wife? Who wants kids that are the smartest dressed in town? Who cares? Ask your children, do you want to be holy? You think they might turn around and say, Dad are you holy? Do you live like Christ in our home? You see that's where it comes down to role models as we say. We've got to have men who are models. I think you centralized it last night when you were talking about Christ being in us. You see a man isn't saved because he gives up his lousy sins and confesses sins and believes Jesus rose from the dead. The devil believes that. The devil believes in the virgin birth, he witnessed it. The devil believes in the resurrection, he witnessed it. But there's no Christ in the devil, it's Christ in you. Paul says he revealed himself to me and then he revealed himself in me. You'll never forget that if you have that crisis, I'll tell you that. You can argue as much as you like about the second blessing. You come into a crisis where the Christ becomes different, the word of God lives and vibrates. The losses of men, you see men robbing God every day. Some of your deacons do it. They rob God of time, they rob God of his testimony, they rob God of his authority on them. There has to come a revival of purity in the church. So the two most urgent things to me will be to preach that you may know God. Say for the next month you say I'm going to do nothing but study about Jesus Christ who he is and what he is.