Revival: Crisis and Process — Henry Teichrob

Well, I'm just as happy to be here not because originally we wanted to be in this kind of a ministry never looked for it. But then God allowed us to have that privilege and I'm just happy to be here tonight.

And I'm so happy to be on this team. I was reading some time ago about Jonathan Edwards revival you know the revival that did a tremendous thing to turn the United States from a Sort of a reckless path to a life of godliness again.

Revival History and the Role of Laypeople

And the greatest complaint about the revival in Jonathan Edwards day was there were two complaints one was the meetings were too long. And would you believe it in his day? They had men in the church with long poles.

I think they took their offerings with a sort of a stick going down there and a bag going down the Bench or down the row or you perhaps have heard of that and They used to use those long poles to wake up people who went to sleep.

And the other the other thing about Jonathan Edwards revival that caused a lot of controversy is it stirred up some layman who also began to get into the into the work of sharing the gospel and Some people didn't like the lame way layman speak, you know, we lay people aren't all that polished.

I don't know that I should put it this way. I think it's possible to walk around in a theological dream and We lay people Don't get into that situation very easily because we don't know our theology all that well and Secondly our feet are kind of in the mud a lot of the times and we don't get him into that way.

Well when lay people get to taking the pulpit like I am tonight you just never know whether everything is going to come out just as precise as it should and I guess we should be careful. We should study our scriptures.

Of course, we should we should share we should share we should share according to God's Word and not pretend we are who we aren't. But those were the two complaints in his day. And I have noticed that I think if I were to keep my ear to the ground the two most serious complaints about revival today are exactly those two things the meetings get too long and Secondly, there are lay people who seem to be all caught up with this and it's hard to know what to do with them.

They kind of run hither and yon and and they they share this way and that way and they meet in their home. Sometimes and other times they share in churches and it puts an odd kind of a dimension into church life when they start sharing.

It puts kind of an odd kind of dimension into relating to each other as believers when lay people start. Getting involved and really getting on fire for the Lord. So I don't know that that's to the credit or how we should evaluate but I just report that that's what the history books Tell us about Jonathan Edwards revival.

A First Revival Assignment and Learning Surrender

But that's not really what I'm here to talk to you about. I just threw that in by the way I want to share to you a little bit about the very first time I stood in a in a in the pulpit. With Ralph and Lou in Ralph and Lou's Ministry, it was in Vancouver British Columbia.

It was on a Sunday afternoon. It was the first day of the Crusades in Vancouver. And while they had the one of the largest evangelical Church They could find in the city in that area the city South Vancouver and they had the downstairs all wired with closed-circuit TV.

So you'd have two auditoriums downstairs and above each seating about the same number that church was jam-packed and at the last moment they decided to open another church just across the way and They'll say we'll run crusade services and sort of a shuttle system well decisions are made very fast at the last minute and The first assignment I had was to go over to that other church which was also jam-packed and there were people standing on the sidewalk trying to get in and go over there and run a revival crusade service and I will never forget that Sunday afternoon as I went to that church and I said well Lord your word says that you're sufficient.

I don't know how I've never run a revival crusade service in my life. But they tell me to go up there on the Platform take that pulpit and begin a crusade service with a church with probably more people in it than this.

Well, that's the way it started and I want to tell you that in the process from then till now many a time many a time God has been teaching me how to die a death and Live beyond humiliation. It seems that though though the Calvary road that we're walking with God when we're really in fellowship with him is A life we live which is beyond humiliation.

You cast yourself so completely upon the Lord that you say whatever happens Lord. Even if I look like the most inappropriate and unwelcome fellow I Will do what I believe you want me to do for your glory and let it be.

And I started that Sunday afternoon that way. Thanks cross that street and that heavy downpour and many a time since then I Have been on my knees before God Telling him Lord. I gave you my life. I Gave you all of it.

I'm not taking it back and I want you to continue to do in me what you want to do and Again, and again God brings us to those little crisis points where we have to be ready to die. So that we can really live and I really believe that's what the Christian walk is all about everywhere we go, of course, we meet many new people and Freda was just telling me today.

She says I think I've in Red Deer. I've found a few more people. To become members of the poor me society everywhere we go we find the poor me people and I guess maybe that's why the Lord has led her into that talk on depression.

We we find them everywhere and the thrilling part is that we see God deliver them from the poor me kind of life To an abundant life where they can rejoice in the Lord Jesus. We meet people who have to whom God deals with very harshly and kind of a crisis.

I Remember the man and not so long ago in Jackson, Michigan Who had retired and he felt that his severance pay wasn't quite right figured out, right and He said he retired a year or two early. They asked him to retire the company was shifting its headquarters or something like that and Because he had the rate he felt his severance pay wasn't quite right.

He decided to take with him a rather expensive instrument that they used to do testing in the laboratory. And he felt that that instrument would sort of compensate for the incorrect calculation of the severance pay.

Here he was a man in his 60s and he had an instrument in his basement. Which he hoped to sell for a reasonable price to make up for the severance pay that he was losing. Well, you know what happened in revival man shook that God shook that man and He was on his knees and then he was on his way back to the company with the instrument and then he gave his testimony to a whole series of people as he started with a supervisor and finally found the man who could accept the instrument and write it off and Our life is just filled with people whose hearts are touched by the Lord in what we call revival even though some people don't like the word and Perhaps we should have another word.

We don't know what what the right word is. I do know this. That as we watch God at work in the hearts of people He does things that often bring about a crisis experience in the person's life. I Heard I remember in Michigan at a pastor's meeting on several occasions where the talk went something like this a pastor's would say Well, we preach exactly the same message as this your people don't bring any new doctrines to town.

You don't preach anything new. There's nothing new about this, but we see so many people go to the prayer room. We see people making restitution. We've been hurt tonight. We see people getting right with God.

We see how homes restored. We see people saved in the middle of this. What's the difference? How is it, you know in Michigan there most of the churches there it seems to be the Evangelical churches are so heavily Baptist.

So this is almost always in Baptist circles and you sit around and they ask this question. Why is it that something is happening now? And I've been listening as a lay person, you know. As you've heard physics and math is my background when I did teaching in physics I did a lot of collecting of data and then trying to analyze it to find out what it meant.

And I've listened for well meeting after meeting literally hundreds of pastors meetings and I've listened to pastors speak from all kinds of churches and all kinds of congregations and Watch and listen to them discuss this and they say you don't bring anything new to town.

Why why are people excited? Why do people get excited? Why do people get right with God when we preach exactly the same thing on a Sunday morning and nothing seems to happen. In fact, I've heard pastors say I quit giving invitations altogether.

I Did for so long and nothing happened. So I quit. And I don't have any invitations in my church anymore. Nothing happens when we do. They say you people come to town you preach the same message the same gospel you talk about loving the Lord and believing in Jesus Christ and being filled with a spirit and walking in the spirit and living a Normal Christian life.

We preach the same thing and nothing happens. And as I've listened, I believe that that if we look at the Word of God very closely and we'll read carefully I think Jesus shows us conditions. Just like they are today.

They were there in his day. Which which begin to reveal? Why it is that we can talk so much about living a Christian life. But never come to grips with it and I believe it this way. We've read the scriptures already this tonight or I would take time to read Matthew chapter 5 the first 17 verses where it talks about The Beatitudes, you know blessed are the poor in spirit and some of you can recite that.

Being, Doing, and Having

But you know in life, there are only basically three things you can do you three dimensions to living. The first one is you can be something. You can be something. And the second is you can do something and the third one is you can have something and there isn't any more than that.

Those are three dimensions to living and we can talk an awful lot about doing things. How many sermons have we heard about doing the things that a Christian should do? You should witness you should come to church regularly.

You should tie you should teach Sunday school. You should serve the Lord you should do this. You should do that. You should become involved in the church program. You should have fellowship with your fellow believers and then you shouldn't things you shouldn't do.

You shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do that and we go all through that and many many sermons are built on what we should do. When we preach that way nothing much happens. Some of us make resolutions that we will do something like this.

We'll increase our giving a little bit or we'll try and be a better witness or we'll do something different than we did last week. And we walk out of the church, but nothing happens to us with the same people.

We can have a lot of sermons about what we should have. You know, we should have this and many of us spend our lifetime getting things we should have. How much of your energy is spent on having things.

You're gonna have a house and a car and you can have this a job and a career and a family and you have all Those things and you spend energy on having all of that. The thing we don't really want to hear about is what we should be and As I have watched God work in this in this thing called revival.

The emphasis of the message and the message God is giving to his people today. Is that we should be what God wants us to be? There's very little said that strikes in the people's hearts in this kind of a ministry that I see God working among people.

That has to do with what we should have. Little is said about what you should have or shouldn't have and little is said about what you should do or shouldn't do but God is speaking very directly by his spirit to our hearts about what we should be and Many of us have had to get on our knees and say Lord.

I am NOT what you want me to be and In doing that I've come to grips with reality. Because God is more interested in what I am. Then in what I have or what I do. He knows that if I am what I am to be then I will do what I am to do and I will have what he wants me to have and He's dealing with me about who are you Henry?

Who are you? Are you the person that God wants you to be? Now Christians dodge that question. That's a very penetrating question because it gets right to the heart. That doesn't get on the outside of you that gets to the inside of you.

Who are you? What are you in God's sight and? We quickly dodged the issue by saying well Lord. I will do this. I Will do something or I have this Lord, and I'll give it to you and We don't get honest with God because we won't deal with who we are.

We won't admit to God that we are not the people that he wants us to be. I'm not the person he wants us to be and I believe this ministry has been raised up of God to Confront people bring them to a crisis situation where they have to deal with a question.

Are we what God wants us to be? Now let's stop talking about doing even in this revival. I've heard lay people say what do we do now? That isn't the question. You could organize more things in this community than you could shake a stick at.

You want more organizations? Those are easy to put up. The man on the street can put up organizations too by the way. And he doesn't know anything about Christ. The real question isn't what we're going to do.

It isn't what we're going to have. It's what we're going to be. That's very penetrating because it could keeps us ever before God with that question. Cruz Squarely before us am I what God wants me to be?

That's what revival is all about. Revival isn't building new churches or filling the churches we have. Revival is being what God wants us to be. That's what that's what it really is all about. Dr. Douglas Brown said revival is not going down the front street beating a drum not getting mighty busy and Demonstrating what we've got but getting back to the cross with a sob in the heart.

Right there at the cross. Where I let God do to me what he wants to do so I can be what he wants me to be. And after that the doing will be just fine and the having will come into place. And I could read on many quotes of what men have said about revival and as I read.

Read in the past few days. What great men have said about revival. DL Moody people like that and you read their definitions of revival and constantly the theme? Comes through revival is a time when God asks his people whether they are what he wants them to be.

And I believe that's the message to the lay people here in Red Deer. Let's not look for great. Let's not look for great doings. Let's look for great beings. Let's look for people who are filled with the spirit.

People who are walking through this town in humility in transparent honesty. Doing their business and walking through life. Being what God wants them to be. When we're what God wants us to be I'm absolutely convinced that he will never fail to tell us what we should do.

And we'll be doing while we're being we'll be doing what God wants us to do. I believe the reason God's raised up this ministry. And I say this with a bit of a perspective of what can be the ongoing effect of this ministry in this in this town.

I Believe the reason God has raised it up and made it so vital in people's lives is he wants to bring us to the to a Position where we have to face that question. Am I what God wants me to be. I Find out throughout Scripture God always dealt with men.

David, Moses, and the Crisis of Repentance

To bring them to what he wanted them to be when they were not what he wanted them to be. You take a David when he sinned. God brought David to a crisis situation about that sin by bringing the prophet to him and Telling him that story, you know the story and when David reacted to that the Prophet said David you're the man and right there God brought a crisis situation into David's life and David got right with God and he wrote that beautiful 51st Psalm, which God is using right these days very powerfully.

About that experience. I look at the life of Moses when he wasn't what God wanted him to be. God confronted him with a crisis experience and as God speaks to us many of us are confronted with the crisis and the crisis is often emotional and Some people will say that this revival is emotionalism.

Because they have seen people in a crisis situation. This God brings us to the crisis situation because he wants to perform in us and do in us. What is his will? Now when I'm stopped in my Christian experience and when I'm not yielding to the Potter.

The clay isn't yielding the Potter brings the clay to a crisis experience. He destroys the thing as it were he breaks it down and he starts all over again same clay. But through that crisis experience he brings us down on our knees.

So that he can now pick us up and build us into what he wants us to be. He wants us to be conformed to the image of his son. That's the only reason he saved us. The reason he saved us was to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ so that my life might reflect Jesus Christ.

So that in my life by the power of the Holy Spirit Christ might be lifted up and the whole community might see Christ living in me because that's where Christ is living in me as he was born anew by a spirit and The purpose of God in redeeming me was to have Christ Show through my life live in my life and show through my life.

And as soon as I resist his Shaping me so that the image of his dear son is Reflected in my life. Then God brings me to a crisis experience. I Believe for many of you God has tried to bring you to a point of crisis long before this crusade came along.

He has put situations in your pathway where he wanted you to break and say dear God I give myself an unreserved surrender to you, but you didn't listen you avoided the situation and God brings this this around so Christians get together and as we fellowship together begin to pick up our ears.

God shows us what he wants and people become obedient and they respond and they get into a crisis experience and When they're broken before God as we break before God God is able again to as the potter does with that clay to connect to shape us and Form us into the image of his dear son and the life of Christ is reflected through me as he does that.

Revival as Crisis and Process

Now many of you've had a crisis experience, but that's only the beginning. That's not what revival is all about. Revival shakes us down and brings us to our knees. Shows us what we really are so that we can be involved in the process because what God wants to put us through a process He wants to shape my life he wants to direct it and guide it and It and because I was stopped in my Christian growth I wasn't.

I wasn't growing the way Christ wanted me to grow. He had to bring revival to my town and get a hold of my heart so I put my life back into God's hand so he could continue to do in me what he wanted to do and Almost all people when they've met God they say praise God.

God broke me. He broke me so I can again be in his hands as clay in the potter's hand and I sense the master. My master is at work in my life making me what he wants me to be. The dr. Martin Lloyd-jones from London England quoting from a book by dr. Ryrie entitled the balance balancing the Christian life write this as follows about a crisis and a process.

Because revival is both It's the crisis and the process. In Romans 8 13 if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body he shall live. This is a very interesting verse which brings a great deal of balance into the spiritual life.

For one thing it declares that those who have already crucified the flesh still need to put the death to death the deeds of the body you see the coming to the point where we're willing to lay down our lives and accepting the cross of Jesus Christ as our cross and Identifying ourselves with his crucifixion is a crisis experience.

So God brings us to the cross where we lay down our life, but thereafter the process goes on. He says. For another thing this verse declares That we do this through the spirit to be sure but nevertheless we have a vital part.

You is the subject of the verb to be put to death and it is in the active voice I do it. If it were a passive voice, then it would mean that someone else does it for me. The Holy Spirit enables but I do it.

Now he says this death which is that crisis experience by whereby we come to the cross with our sins and the the Our rebellion against God's way in our life. It says death always means separation never extinction.

So putting to death the deeds of the body cannot mean eradicating them. That doesn't that doesn't happen in this life, but it does mean separating myself from those things. Death I said means separation.

Death to self is not extinction of the self-life but separation from its power. Now if I'm separated from the power of my self-life then for all practical purposes in my life it is gone. So putting to death the deeds of the body does not mean that those deeds will no longer be a part of our existence but it can mean that they need no longer be a part of our experience and Many of us I've come and we said Lord I want to die the self and what we've really said is I lay down my life and now I want to be in a continuous process.

Whereby I am dead to the demands of my selfish life my self-life and I'm alive under God. Now, how long will revival continue? It'll continue till Jesus comes as we submit to the process through which God wants to lead us.

Entering into that process is a beautiful thing. Dr. Richard Bennett says about that again speaking about crisis and process. He says do not minimize what God has done in your life. He's talking about meeting God and we had the privilege of working with dr. Richard Bennett both in Vancouver and again in the Netherlands.

Man of God who preaches a powerful message. He says do not minimize what God has done in your life. It is well to keep the memory green through Thanksgiving and testimony. The Holy Spirit baptized you into the death of Christ at your conversion.

This becomes effective when you attend your own funeral and Brought to Calvary every expression of the self-life. What has happened? What has happened since then? Has some deed or word thought or act caused you to doubt the reality of your experience and the validity of his provision?

The deeds of the body have disappointed you and dried up the stream of revival blessing. There's an answer your responsibility is to continually hand over these potential deeds to the divine executioner the Holy Spirit.

As you do this you exercise your responsibility or right enabling the Spirit of God to separate you from the deeds of the body as the verse says to mortify them. And I'm excited about revival. Certainly, I'm excited when people meet God.

I think it's wonderful when people meet God and get things straight in their life. But all the process that continues is just absolutely tremendous. Because it transforms our lives. It changes us. As we're changed we become what God wants us to be.

How many homes have been changed in revival. Hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds have gone. Transformations from within. How many lives have been completely changed. Literally literally thousands of them.

Thousands upon thousands. I just thrill at the way this revival trail kind of spreads about if I can digress for a moment. Last night. I don't know you many of you people weren't in the afterglow we had but there was a gentleman there.

A Crisis in the Arctic and God’s Providence

Who got right with God? 55 degrees below zero. Kneeling in a pool of oil. 40 mile an hour wind howling. The generators had gone out on the station a hundred miles north of Inuvik. Where they were trying to build an artificial island with some chemicals.

So how did he know what to do? How did he know how to get right with God. A Pastor visited Regina in the revival there took the message of revival to Edmonton. Took a lay team out to a small town in Alberta where this lay team shared and this man was listening.

He made no decision at that service, but he heard the message of being absolutely right with God. And it just illustrates what I'm really saying. There he was in dire circumstances all of a sudden as his generator went out and he'd know he knew he would freeze to death there and He knew that his chemicals would freeze in an hour or so and the whole project would go down the drain.

What did he do? He remembered what he heard. He got down his knees and that oily floor and that steel box and he got right with God. He gave his life completely to God. This is what he said in the prayer room last night or in the in the afterglow last night downstairs.

He got his life right with God. And you know God so gracious and so marvelous so wonderful when he got out through praying he saw the headlights of a truck coming his way and Someone had driven Unexpected had driven with a truck to that construction site and who was it?

It was the mechanic who put that generator into operation in a few minutes and Saved the whole project. You see the way God takes the revival blessing and he takes a little trail and he goes all the way up there a hundred Miles north of Inuvik that man.

I believe is in Calgary or somewhere like that right now and He spreads this message that you can be right with you should hear his testimony and see the glow on his face and the burden. For others that he has which is beautiful.

Those of you were there know that God has blessed people with this message hither and yon almost all over North America and The message is always almost always it seems is a accompanied with something of a crisis.

See, obviously that man wasn't being what God wanted him to be. He wasn't what God wanted him to be he wasn't surrendered to God. He wasn't willing to let God have his way in his life, and he knew it.

And there he was up there a hundred miles from nowhere. Ready to freeze to death and that to me would be a crisis experience. God sort of boxed him in and he said to him now. Are you going to get right with me?

And he said yes. And he met God and today a year later a year and a half later He's rejoicing and he's walking with God. He is in the process that Crisis experience puts him into the process of walking with God.

Revival’s Central Question: Are We What God Wants Us to Be?

Well, he called himself a Christian before so many people ask us are many people getting saved in these meetings and the answer is no. Although in the prayer room downstairs, I've seen a number of nights There have been people who accepted Christ, but the message God is giving to you and to me Is are we what God wants us to be?

And I'm convinced that every one of us sitting in this auditorium tonight know in our innermost being we know Whether we are what God wants us to be. I Don't believe there's a man or a woman or a boy or girl in this audience tonight can say I have no idea Whether I am being what God wants me to be that man knew very fast when the lights went out He knew very fast whether he was being what God wanted him to be.

And deep down in the inner recess of our heart. We all know whether we are being what God wants me to be. If we are what God wants us to be it will always show up in our prayer life. And I just want to say this by listening to your own prayers you will know where you stand with God.

If you are mostly praying help me Lord. Help me here. Help me there. Then you are essentially concerned about doing things. About doing because you need help and doing the thing and you say help me help me help me.

God is not very interested in that prayer. If I understand the scriptures, that should be the last prayer we should pray to be concerned about doing. We'll be doing what God wants us to do when we are what he wants us to be.

That's the theme of my message tonight. And when people constantly pray help me help me help me help me. It means they're so busy trying to do something that they're not paying any attention about trying to be something.

Then there's another group that pray a great deal give me give me give me. Well, they're trying to have more Lord give me this and give me that and give me that you know the other and it's all based on the fact that they want to have more.

Well, God isn't very interested in us hat what we have. He can give to us the whole world if he wants to his concern is what I am. And When you're really concerned and you are beating God's. You're in harmony with God so that his heart and yours are beating together.

You will be praying about what you are. Not what you do or what you have but what you are. And many times you'll have to come and say Lord forgive me. Forgive me for not being what you wanted me to be in this circumstance.

Forgive me for speaking to my children like that. Forgive me for having that attitude toward my wife. Forgive me for walking through my business life like that. Because it's the pathway of forgiveness that God's uses to make us what he wants us to be.

Calvary is the story of forgiveness. That's what Calvary is all about. And my dear ones what God was saying to us here tonight is. Are we what God wants us to be? We don't have to concern ourselves about the doing and the having.

Do you know what that does to the prayer life? It turns our life to a prayer of praise a prayer of praise. Because when we are what God wants us to be we will be worshiping him because we were redeemed to worship for him.

To bring honor and glory to his name so that everything that we do will be done for the glory of God. Because it's really not what we do. That's at stake. It's the glory of God. That's at stake and many of us I was pointing my fingers at me because I'm a layperson many of us lay people in our churches are so busy planning what we should do and we never sit down with each other and Ask ourselves.

Applying Revival to Church Committees and Christian Service

Are we what God wants us to be? I Would suggest that your next committee meeting whatever committee you're on in your church. Instead of laying out another group of plans. Why don't you start that committee meeting this way?

You say Loved ones, you know your brothers and sisters in Christ. Why don't we ask ourselves the question today? First of all, whether we the members of this committee are what God wants us to be. Let's start there.

You see the natural mind always thinks about those three backwards the natural mind the man on the street out there. Who it doesn't know Christ will talk about doing things. You can go out there and talk about doing things right away.

That's the way the natural mind works the eye of the fallen mind the carnal mind works this way the second thing a carnal mind says is what are you got and He'll show you all of his possessions and what he has and he doesn't want to talk at all about what he wants to be.

You try and get a talk the man on the street there what he is what he is inside. What is he? He says that's the question. I don't discuss that's private and As Christians you see we're doing almost the same thing.

What happens when you have a coffee fellowship in your home, what do you talk about what you've been doing? What you have have you ever visited those people who have everything and they make sure you have to admire it.

Oh. Some of those relatives, you know who got everything they have everything. And you've got a day visit and all you're just so as you so completely exhausted admiring everything they have. You know what it's like and some of them don't have very much but still expect you to admire it for a long time.

You see what so preoccupied about what we do and what we have and as Christians we're in the same rut and God says it's time you started to ask the question. What are you? Are you right with God? Forget about what you're doing.

I'll never forget in the town of Swift current when a group of men doing Christian service brigade met one one night and they Somehow God steered them on to this question instead of being involved with all their activities they sort of sat together or their spirit of revival was breezing through Saskatchewan and they sat together and someone had come from Regina and They talked to the men and what the question seemed to emerge as men are we what God wants us to be?

And they had revival in that meeting. Then Some results of that of that little meeting of those ten or twelve men. I heard reports of that two weeks ago. Of that meeting with God what happened? They stopped their doing.

They didn't talk about did they have enough equipment for the boys? They sat down and said are we what God wants us to be as men? And they had revival and I honestly believe that God is strongly addressing us as laypeople.

To ask the most important question first. I hear in the prayer room people say I Had to set my priorities straight. Well, it's true. We the laypeople need to set our priorities straight about those three things.

First be what God wants you to be and he'll take care of what he gives you to have and He'll also take care of what he wants you to do. I Sometimes see laypeople in revival and it disturbs me a little bit.