Hindrances to Spiritual Revival — Joshua Daniel

Welcome to the Lord's Challenge with Joshua Daniel. The Layman's Evangelical Fellowship International is a ministry reaching people from all walks of life since 1935. After a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ at the age of 16, Joshua Daniel has been declaring the marvelous deliverance from sin, which is freely given to all those who turn to the loving Savior.

From small villages to large cities, in many parts of the globe, through revival meetings, literature, radio, internet, and television, Joshua Daniel has been tirelessly laboring, trusting God to supply all that is needed.

Wherever this message has gone out, broken relationships have been restored, sickness healed, ill-gotten money returned, and thieves turn into givers. We now invite you to watch and receive the invaluable blessing that God has for you.

The Christian Life as a Practical Response to the Resurrection

You know, everything about the good news is a practical thing. It's not a Sunday morning thing. It may be that God has given to us the resurrection morning to come together as the early church and to remember the love of the Lord and to worship Him.

Now, this has been established for us as a stimulus, as a kind of starting point. So, the Sunday morning ought to stir you up, get you going, and move you into true momentum. That Sunday morning, my Lord is risen.

I can't be sitting around twiddling my thumbs, eating my own pie. My Lord is risen. I can't be as dead as a doornail when my Lord is risen. You see, that is the response. That is the church. That is a part of our being.

You see, it is not some organized type of shoving or pushing. It is a part of our being. It is a part of our being which is administered gently. It is the power of the resurrection. It is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Resisting Distractions That Silence Spiritual Zeal

See, if you want to silence that voice, now, of course, being an emperor in Babylon, in that great transcontinental kingdom, there was nobody to silence Cyrus. Today, there are many who would want to silence you.

They might tell you, oh, you're getting overenthusiastic about all this stuff. There are better things to do, you know. What are the better things to do? Play games. Yes, I played a lot of games. But we must not forget a game is a game.

Life is more than a game. Bringing up children is more than a game. Building up your home is more than a game. But, you know, we think it's like a game which is all over in two or three hours and you're shouting yourself hoarse over some ball which is running in the right direction.

Wholehearted Commitment to Christ

All right, if you want to spend your life playing games, you will have to give an account of it to God. Oh, my dear friends, when I played my games, I played them with all my heart. But when it came to playing for Jesus, it meant playing at a different level.

The commitment was different. I thought my commitment to games was wonderful, complete with practice and hard work. But when it came to Jesus, it meant playing at a different level. The commitment became of a completely different level, my dear friends.

Sacrificial Giving for the Work of God

So he said, come on, some of you probably, if you're not able to just pull up your roots and go to Jerusalem to get the job accomplished, all right then, make sure that you have a job. The people who are going are well-provided with gold, silver, beasts, everything that is needful for the temple.

You know, a friend of mine, a missionary, when he came over on follow, the mission insisted, you must go and see this old lady. All right, the mission insisted. And he said, I cannot understand, ma 'am, how it is that the mission insists that I should see you.

Well, she said, all these years I have given to the Lord, but you don't have much. So she opened the window and said, now all those houses on that street are mine. And what does an old body like me do with all that property?

I give it to the Lord. And this man was amazed. He was amazed. He was a good old friend of mine, a wonderful man of great sacrifice. So friends, you will find that some of the people who are going to be the people who made sacrifices to send the good news into China, into some of the remotest places, Sudan, and so on, were people of real sacrifice.

A Life Dedicated to Taking the Gospel to the Multitudes

You know, my dear friends, when I started, I had nothing, absolutely nothing. And I never asked anybody for anything. But there was a prayer and a heart cry in me. The good news must be taken to the multitudes.

And I did not know how this could ever be accomplished. Yet, as I see what God is doing, slowly unfolding, and people who have never heard the gospel message wondering, can this be true? Can such a thing be really true?

Can people live like this today? My heart and my answer to that is always, okay, if you have any doubts, come and live with me. Watch me, see me. The Christian life is a beautiful life. Sacrificial living is a beautiful thing.

The Altar as the Foundation of Spiritual Life

Now, my dear friends, there were many hindrances that turned up. Many hindrances that turned up. Now, if you turn to the third chapter and the first verse, and when the seven month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem.

You see, the foundations were going to be laid. The first thing that was built was, what was it? Second verse. Then stood up Joshua, the son of Jonadam, and his brethren, the priest, and Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and built the altar of God of Israel.

The altar had disappeared. You know, we think of the decoration, we think of the windows, we think of the carpet, we think of a lot of things. We never think of the altar. The first thing that was built was the altar.

What is the last thing in most people's life? Prayer. If you want to build anything which you can call the semblance of a real family today, it's got to be the altar. It's got to begin with the altar.

And where the altar does not occupy the living room, the central place in your thoughts and planning, I can tell you the end of the story. In one word, disaster. Disaster. Where there is no altar, you are guaranteeing disaster.

You are writing your own obituary. The end. So they began with the altar. Today, how sad. The prayer meetings. You know, folks, one of my friends from Scotland, when he saw revival in the Hebrides, the islands west of Scotland, and when people were walking over the hills, they would suddenly stop and say, where is this music coming from?

Prayer Meetings and the Signs of Revival

Suddenly the music from heaven would waft over them. And people out on the sea, they would say, where is this music coming from? Fishermen would bring their boats back to the shore. And unannounced meetings, the middle of the night, the church would be full.

The prayer meetings, he said to me, were the most powerful meetings. You know how it is today. In one of those islands where I preached and revival broke out, the local beer joint, which is called a pub in UK, the pub began to lose its regulars.

My dear friends, you know that some of you have heard our good friend, Pastor Homer Candle, tell you how four of these pubs, bars, or beer joints around the place in Ohio where God sent revival, it was 23 or 24 days of continuous revival and continual preaching in that small community.

And those pubs had to shut down. And some of the workers in the pubs became missionaries here in this land, just next door to us in Ohio. Well, we don't expect the great works of God. Even that expectation of God's great work is not there.

I can't find any excitement. I'm sorry, but I find little excitement. You saw some of those big buildings. There was nothing there. It was just plain rice paddies and coconut palms. There was nothing there when I went and saw it.

And if 10 ,000 people come, that's not a great problem. We can fit them in, in the hall. But those are not the things that move me or excite me. The altar produces far more. That's the first thing. If the altar is missing, you will never see great things.

That's out. You may see more trade centers, world trade centers in your own life, bluntly speaking. But you're not going to see anything of permanent value without the altar. The first thing that had to be done was the altar.

Weeping Over the State of the Temple, Churches, and Families

And the next thing that was done was the foundations of the temple. And when the foundations of the temple were laid, some of those men that had seen the former temple wept. They wept. Really, we ought to weep, you know, over the condition of our churches today.

We ought to weep. The condition of the families in America today ought to make us weep if there's any rationality about us. This is not the time for us to behave like children in a toy shop. When they saw the foundations laid, they wept.

Pride, Humiliation, and the Need to Yield to the Holy Spirit

Last of all, what is the hindrance to these great things from being accomplished in your life? Now let us turn to Daniel, fourth chapter. In closing, Daniel, the fourth chapter, and the last verse says, Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor you, for you have honored Jonah, the king of heaven.

All his works are truth, and his ways judgment. And those that walk in pride, he is able to abase. I remember telling a very able preacher, there's a lot of unseen pride in you, brother, a man whom God was using.

He would heal the sick and God would use him. And I loved him, but I could see that there were some sticking points in his life. Sticking points, I call them. You know, certain glues are advertised in this manner.

Even so many elephants cannot pull this apart. Once you get them stuck with this particular adhesive, even elephants can't draw them apart. Listen, if the Holy Spirit doesn't budge you, you're lost. You're lost.

The Holy Spirit stirred up Cyrus' heart. The Holy Spirit pre-warned Nebuchadnezzar of what was going to happen. You're going to be driven out amongst the animals. You're going to eat the grass of the field.

But he did not take that warning. But when he came back to himself, this is what he says. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of Heaven, whose works are truth and his ways judgment.

A Broken Spirit and Humble Heart as the Secret of Victory

And those that walk in pride, he is able to abase. Don't throw the gauntlet. Don't throw the gauntlet. Don't throw the gauntlet to God. You know, that's an old phrase. In the days of the knights, if a man threw his gauntlet down, it meant come on for a duel.

Come on for a sword fight. Don't throw your gauntlet to God. It's dangerous. Nebuchadnezzar learned this lesson through much humiliation. And when men ask me, or when I wish to tell people the secret of victory, it is this.

One word. A broken spirit. A humble heart. A broken spirit. That is the secret. The Lord will be with you. Whatever happens, whatever success you may have in any other realm, be sure to keep that broken spirit.

And those sticking points in your life, from which nothing seems to budge you, they will not be there when you have a broken spirit. Let us pray. Oh Lord our God, you have told us that though you are high, you will dwell also with him who is of a broken spirit.

We do not want to have any sticking points in our lives. When we say even horses can't budge me, even elephants can't budge me, but let us never come to that point of total folly when we throw the gauntlet to God.

Oh please have mercy and give to us to hold fast to a broken spirit. Neither an avalanche of greenbacks, nor streets filled with mansions, or the acquisition of the biggest banks in this world may not take away from us that broken spirit.

Help us Lord. We pray. We want to carry this blessing of the stirrings which the Holy Spirit gives in a broken spirit to the very last breath. Yes Lord, to the very last breath. I want to carry this broken spirit and hold fast to it.

So let all these dear people have that broken spirit and you will be with them and you will guide them and keep them. So help us in Jesus' holy name. Amen.