The Gift of Revival — Bill McLeod

Good evening, pretty dull. Let's try again. We practiced once. Good evening. Oh. Everybody's awake. Harry and Evelyn probably won't tell you this when they give their testimony. So I'll say it perhaps for them Dr. Sherwood worked who was for 25 years editor of Billy Graham's decision paper got a phone call from Leonard Ravenhill and Leonard said there's revival in Canada revival is next door to heaven.

You better get up there. I Don't know where he got my name I think through from Leonard Ravenhill and he phoned me and asked where the action was and I said well right now it's out in the far west or in Winnipeg and So he flew down to Winnipeg.

He was only there one night but that night Harry and Evelyn gave their testimony and And that really spoke to him because he had a tremendous need in his life in exactly the same area it just related to him a hundred percent and So he invited her and everyone to go down to Minneapolis and they had an afterglow there and that's all I'll tell you.

There's a book on the book table. It's called the afterglow and in that book. Dr. Wirt tells what happened in his life as A result of the revival in Canada and Harry and Evelyn's testimony. It's quite a story.

Did you come praying tonight? I heard one. Yes. At least one prayed. How many prayed before you came to the meeting tonight? I mean prayed for this meeting. Let's see your hands. Oh. That's terrible. I don't think there's more than 15 hands went up.

Do you have turkey for dinner or something? Slept all afternoon. Oh somebody said yes, I had duck for dinner. Some of us were talking today about this very matter of praying before you go to a meeting and You know we came to the conclusion that if every congregation would do that Every time before they went to a meeting we probably have revival in a lot of our churches.

Not just pray but believe that God would bless in that particular service and Then God would bless because you were believing. Maybe that's how revival would come to your church. I don't know. It's come to many churches, and I'm sure God wants it to come to all but we have to find out the channel that God has in mind for our particular situation and Church, I don't know what to kind of a title to give to my message tonight.

The Corinthian Church and the Call to Revival

Maybe I'll know better after I preach it we sometimes and mistakenly Think that the church at Corinth was totally backslidden. It really wasn't if you read the whole story. What did Paul say in chapter 1 of 1st Corinthians?

He said so that you come behind in no gift waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He said you are enriched by Christ in all utterance and in all knowledge. Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you.

There were some people in the Corinthian church that were in trouble spiritually. There was one person guilty of immorality. But the concept that the whole church was badly backslidden is just not biblical at all.

There were problems there now. Paul in writing to the church in chapter 6 of the first book. He said what? Don't you know? That your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you which you have of God.

And you're not your own for your bought with the price. Now he didn't say some of you Corinthians have the Holy Spirit and some of you don't have the Holy Spirit. He never said that. What he really said was have you people forgotten?

That the God's Holy Spirit lives within you. Have you forgotten it? Don't you know and that's something that could be said a question that could be asked of many Christians today. Don't you know that your body is?

The temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you. Which you have of God and you are not your own. You're not the boss in your life if you are. You are usurping the place the Lord Jesus Christ should have and you're totally out of step with God.

You are not your own you are bought with a price and Then he puts in a therefore. That is because you're not your own and because you're bought with the price therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit.

Which are God's? So twice he tells us that we belong totally entirely holy body soul and spirit to the Lord. You are not Your own and some of us haven't wakened up to that we haven't faced this truth that I don't belong to myself.

I belong entirely to God. And I need to be asking the question that Paul asked when he met Christ. Lord, what will you have me to do? And we'd all ask that question and then follow through as God makes his will plain.

He will do that for us. What blessings we'd have. What changes in our churches. We wouldn't have a shortage of workers on the mission field who wouldn't be short of money to carry on the work of God around the world.

We wouldn't have these long Protracted dry periods in our churches where almost nobody gets saved. I just finished reading a book it's a book dealing written by some sociologists on Canadian religious life and Some people have called the most significant book on this subject in the last century and They're telling us that the average evangelical church in Canada Wins to Christ from the world.

Only 1 .9 people a year that's sad and is it for your church is dear people. We haven't faced up to the truth that we don't belong to ourself. So what we're doing is we're doing our own thing. We do what we want to do with our money and our time and our talents and everything else and We justify this by saying well, everybody else is doing the same.

But not everybody else is doing the same and even if everybody else was doing the same It still doesn't make it right. The Bible says thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil. Just because the mob is doing it and most Christians are doing that doesn't make it right.

Spiritual Power and the Renewal of the Mind

Job said How little a Whisper is heard of him of God. Where's heard of God today? Paul prayed in Ephesians chapter 1 and his pray prayed for three things for Christians. And one of the things was that was this that we might know the exceeding greatness of God's power to us word who believe.

And in Isaiah the last verse of chapter 60 says a Little one Shall become a thousand and a small one a strong nation. I the Lord will hasten it in his time. One person can become a thousand. A Small person can be on that can become a whole nation.

And the next verse Remember that these chapter divisions are artificially were put in long after the Bible was written Just to make it more convenient for people to find certain places. So there's no break action the original writing in Isaiah the next verse says the spirit of the Lord God is upon me and That's how one can become a thousand but not if I'm running my own life and doing my own thing and certainly not if I haven't Presented my body as a living sacrifice to God which the Bible says is the only Reasonable thing I can do in the light of what God has done for me and in the light of the truth that I don't belong to myself.

I Am the Lord's. We sing it. I'm his and he is mine. And we think more of he is mine than if I am his forever and Forever. Why isn't the spirit working more powerfully in your life one in mine? We should be asking that question and in our churches.

Why not? Well in Ephesians chapter 4 Paul tells us there's certain things were supposed to as Christians put off and Certain things as Christians were supposed to put on. He says we're to put off the old man according to the deceitful us.

Then he says be renewed in the spirit of your mind. There's revival. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. He mentioned this renewal again in rebel in Romans chapter 12 when he says present your bodies a living sacrifice.

And then he says be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind. And that's what happens in a personal revival. My mind is totally renewed my way of thinking my way of acting and reacting to God in his word and his will it all changes and it's a real renewal and In these days some people have experienced that and people are experiencing that all over the world actually today.

Putting Away Lying and Speaking Truth

Now let's look at some of the things he tells us to put off and some things that we're supposed to put on. He begins by saying wherefore. Putting away lying speak every man truth with his neighbor. Now does that mean that Christians lie?

Well apparently it does because he's talking to Christians some of us don't lie. We exaggerate. Well, that's lying too, but we don't think it is. When some people relate a story if there were two men in the story when they tell it there were four.

You know if the fellow ran 100 yards in 11 seconds. They say he did it in nine. If a church took an offering of $4 ,000 when they tell a story for 7 ,000, they're always exaggerating. That's lying. Whether you're doing that or doing it in some other way.

The reason we lied to your people is because we're afraid to tell the truth because the consequences of telling the truth. But the fact of the matter is if you tell one you have to tell two to cover up the first one.

There's certain to cover up the second one and it keeps on and on until you're you're face to face with a dozen lies. Then it's much harder. So it says putting away lying speak every man truth with his neighbor for we are members one of another.

Even if it hurts even if it kills you. Tell the truth and God will bless you for doing that. It's one of the things we have to put off. David said I said in my haste all men are liars. Someone's comment on that was this he could have said it in his leisure to as well as in this haste lying.

Speak every man truth in his neighbor for we are members one of another then he says be angry. I Said that I'll bet some people like to have a sermon on that be angry. People love to take a little text out of a context and make a pretext out of it, you know.

Be angry and don't sin. It says Jesus looked round about some people in a synagogue. It says he looked round about on them with anger being grieved for the hardness of their heart. And there's some things we ought to be downright angry about.

Schaefer's son Jackie Schaefer wrote a book. It's called a time. Is it a time to be angry or a time for anger forget which and it's a time For us Christians to be angry at what we see our government's doing.

The things are supporting and pushing and promoting and the things are pushing down. It's a time to be angry and. Then beyond that sometimes people do things we get so frustrated we just blow our top.

But if you do that, the Bible says don't let the Sun go down on your anger. If you're angry overnight. You're grieving the Holy Spirit because that's a context it goes on to say in the same chapter grief.

Not the Holy Spirit of God and if we grieve him, that's why there's no power. Because we've grieved him and so you have people that hold grudges for years. And you hear Christians sometimes say I hate him or I hate her and I won't change and sometimes they do change Thank God.

But that's the attitude some people have. Be angry, but don't sin. Don't let the Sun go down upon your wrath. And the next verse says don't give any place to the devil. The devil will do his best to provoke you and he'll try to provoke you through people that are closest to you.

Sometimes the people you love the most are the ones that will provoke you the most. That's how Satan works. Neither give place to the devil and beyond that in the area of witchcraft stay out of it. Don't monkey around with Ouija boards.

Don't let anybody read your palm. Don't let anybody determine the sex of an unborn child in your body by using a needle on a thread. Don't let people do that. Don't get involved in this kind of in crystal ball reading or going to a fortune teller or any of these things.

There's a hundred and fifty areas of the occult in North America today. You get involved in that stuff and Paul says you're guilty of having fellowship with demons. Don't do that because that'll grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

Gracious Speech and a Clean Mouth

Don't give any place to the devil then he says. Let no corrupt Communication proceed out of your mouth. Don't let anything dirty come out of your mouth. Don't tell dirty stories. Don't tell stories that have a double meaning.

Like sometimes Christians do that and they say well if they've got a what mind and they take the other meaning. That's their problem not mine, but it's your problem. If you tell a story that's got a double meaning and you know, it's got a double meaning then you're guilty.

Don't do that don't let any corrupt the word corruptor in the Greek language means rotten. Don't let any rotten thing come out of your mouth. Don't let any garbage come out of your mouth. He says but only that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace to the ears.

Because everybody's got two ears and they're all listening little kids and older people and what you say they're picking up and maybe the vibrations they're getting our vibrations from below and Not from above.

Let your speech it says be always with grace seasoned with salt. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks the reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Have a clean heart and a clean mouth.

Honest Labor, Generosity, and the Danger of Stealing

Then he says that him that stole steal no more. And there's different ways of stealing, you know. People sometimes they get on unemployment. And they don't bother looking for a job because they say I can survive through the winter on unemployment.

I'll look for a job in the spring. The Bible says if anyone will not work neither should he eat. That's what the Bible says. And there are thousands of people in Canada United States today. They're taking advantage of the system and they're breaking the system by their by their stupidity.

They're not looking for jobs. And I'm not saying anything against the person that is a legitimate reason to be on unemployment insurance. Don't misunderstand me. Or people sometimes get hurt off the job and then they lie about it.

They get some of the swear that they were hurt on the job and they get thousands of dollars this way. I know fell out in in British Columbia. He owned a bread factory and he employed 200 people and he was a Backslidden Christian and used to have beer parties and one time one of his drivers.

They're having a drunken brawl and he fell down and broke his leg. So they carried him out to the truck. Put him in the truck and then they pulled him out of the truck so they could say what we saw him fall out of the truck.

So he was hurt on the job. And when this guy got his life straight now, you've got no idea the garbage yet to deal with. He came to one day and said brother Bill. I think now we're gonna lose the house.

We've lost everything we've got. I think we're gonna lose the house now. He says pray that we won't lose the house because my wife's getting pretty bitter about it all. It's so easy to get involved in garbage and so hard to get out.

It's better not to get in see. So let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor. It says working with his hands the thing that is good that he may have to invest a 12 I'm sure you read that didn't you?

Well, if you didn't read that why are we doing this that he may have to give the margarine says to distribute. To give to him that needs that's what God is saying. Jesus said lend Hoping for 12 and Luke 6 you read that.

No, he said lend hoping for nothing. That's what he said that he may have to give to him that needs Jonathan go forth a great Canadian missionary to China many years ago greatly used of God marvelous revivals.

And here's a little insight into his life you know once or twice a year a check would come from the mission office back home because in those days mail wasn't like today and. So you had to wait months for ships to get there in this kind of thing no airplanes and so he got his semi annual check and he was sitting there with a pad of paper and a pencil and He said there's like you don't know what I'm doing.

Oh, yeah, she says I know what you're doing. You know, what am I doing? She said you're sitting down figuring out how much we can give to the Lord and how little we can live on for the next six months.

He said how did you know she said I've lived you for your ten years. So one of the reasons probably why God used him the way that he did. Figuring out how little he could live on and how much he could give to God for the next six months.

And of course missionaries never do get big salaries, you know. That blessed me when I read that it was just a real challenge to my heart to my life. These are some things that are mentioned in Ephesians chapter 4 in the context.

Grieving the Holy Spirit Through Bitterness and Malice

And then he says don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God and if you fail to put off the old man. And you continue nursing and feeding the old man. You will grieve the Spirit of God and you'll always be a dead fruitless Christian.

There's no way around it. So he says and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you were sealed unto the day of redemption. Don't grieve God's Spirit. And he pursues this further by saying that all bitterness and here's things we have to put off that all bitterness and Wrath someone is called wrath explosive anger.

That all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor. Seeking for personal attention. Some people are always yakking and talking so people will know they're around. They walk in the room and they take it over by storm.

I met a lady like that down in Detroit. She was always ha ha ha and yakking and yak yak yakking all the time. And you know, she nobody could get a word in and she was a center of attraction. So when she was a Sunday school superintendent in a certain church in Detroit, so one day said to her nobody else was around.

I said Do you know what? I think about this ha ha stuff. I hear from you all the time. She says what I Said. I think it's a cover-up for an empty heart. Oh. Did she get mad she went storming out of that room?

She slammed the door so hard it almost came off the hinges. I thought boy. What have I done now, you know? Next day she came to see me and she said oh, thank you. Thank you for what you said. It was so true.

She said I've been on my knees before God for hours and I've got all this garbage out. You know, I came home after that crusade. It must have been three weeks or months late. I got a letter from her open this letter and in big block letters across the top of the page.

It said I'm free. I'm free. I'm free. That's how it started that all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking. Defined by John Wesley in the following terms. He said evil speaking is saying something about a person that you wouldn't dare say if they were standing in front of you.

Put away put it off all evil speaking put it off. That all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking if you put away from you with all malice. Malice is secretly wishing hurt to other people.

You wish they slip in the ice, you know. How you wish to get into a car accident? Something like this. We dealt once with a man who told us frankly that every time his wife got in the car to drive away.

He used to pray that she should get in an accident and get killed because he said I can't listen to that scrawling voice anymore. And he was really a murderer in his heart. That's what he was. He repented and made the whole thing right and he put that off which the Bible tells us to put off the old man.

With his deeds. This is the way the world lives and thinks but Christians are not to live and think the way the world does. We're to live by the Word of God. So that all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor be put away from you with all malice then to put on and He says be kind tender-hearted.

Forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. If God was to deal with you the way sometimes you and I deal with other people. Some of us would have been in hell long ago. Even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you Christ also received us to the glory of God.

So I read in Romans chapter 15 and it says wherefore receive you one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God things to put off things to put on and then he says be followers of God as dear children.

Be followers of God as dear children and he says walk in love as Christ also has loved us and has given himself for us and Offering and a sacrifice to God for sweet smelling fragrance. Well people now Here are some things to put off and here are some things to put on if we don't put these things off.

Well, if we put these things off and don't put these other things on. Then dear people we grieve the Holy Spirit of God and we don't have to look any further than this if we're wondering why it is. That there seems to be so little evidence of God's power in my heart and life.

So little victory over sin so little concern for souls. Because the Spirit is grieved and his witness is no longer in my life the way it should be. He that believes in the Son of God is a witness in himself the Bible says.

Quenching the Spirit by Neglecting Prayer and Obedience

Then going over to first Thessalonians chapter 5 he gives us another reason why the spirit may be grieved here uses a different phrase. He talks about quenching the spirit and this phrase means throwing water on a fire.

That's the idea. The spirit is called the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning. And you can throw water on the spirit. You can quench the spirit by refusing to follow him when he leads you and That's what he's talking about in the context in the first Thessalonians chapter 5.

He says rejoice evermore you sang about that tonight. Ah. It's easy to sing about it. It's a catchy tune rejoice in the Lord always. It's a very catchy tune. But we can sing it but do we do it. Would you be rejoicing tomorrow and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and the rest of your life rejoice in the Lord always.

Always. And then Paul says and again I say rejoice. He says then and going back to first Thessalonians 5 Rejoice evermore. Then he says pray without ceasing when the spirit leads you to rejoice. Rejoice when the spirit leads you to pray then pray.

But what we do maybe we're just about to sit down and watch our favorite TV program Bill Cosby or somebody you know and the spirit leads us to pray and a battle goes on and Cosby wins. And then we wonder why we tried to work up later on we try to work up a time of prayer, and we can't.

All we can think about is Bill Cosby. See or maybe it's at your favorite. You know football team. It's playing the last game man. You've gotta see that. But there's a verse in Proverbs that says he that loves pleasure shall be a poor man.

And the Marginal Reading says he that loves sport shall be a poor man. I've often said I Like sport, but I don't love it. It's not a passion with me. I couldn't care less whether my team actually wins or loses.

It's a diversion and nothing more than the diversion. He that loves sport shall be a poor man spiritually speaking. It'll short-circuit you if these things become paramount and become so important to you that the things of God get crowded out.

And that happens in many Christians lives. I Learned a man to the Lord one time and he was deeply involved in stock car racing. His whole life right revolved around it and when he got saved I never talked about stock car racing.

But God did and he quit it. Then he moved from the area where I was at the time starting a church to out to Edmonton. And he joined the church in the same denomination there and just a few weeks after he got there.

You know the church did. They changed prayer meeting from Wednesday night to Thursday night because stock car racing was on Wednesday night and It almost put him back in the world. He just almost went back in the world over that.

He couldn't understand How the work of God could be juggled around to suit something like this. And I can't understand it either. Rejoice evermore pray without ceasing. God may waken you in the middle of the night to pray.

What do you do? Turn over and go back to sleep. Well, I guess that's what most Christians do. Why don't you ask God to waken you every night to pray? People there's a tremendous need out there. I remember years ago It started God would waken me in the night and I'd start praying for China.

And I'd pray think of those hundreds of millions of people a billion people are more now. And I'm just cry to God sometimes by the hour in the middle of the night. Do you ever pray in the middle of the night?

I'm sure the spirit would like to awaken all of us to pray in the middle of the night to take a half an Hour 15 minutes or an hour or an hour and a half and call in his name. There's great open doors in the world today, but we're not sending the workers in The Philippines listen we should send 2 ,000 evangelist to the Philippines yesterday.

There's a wide open door there, it's incredible, but we're not going in. But TM transcendental meditation people they send a big team into the Philippines, and I was there when they arrived and They had a hundred and fifty million dollars with them.

And they bought their way into one of the biggest universities in the Philippines. They got a controlling interest in the university. There just happened to be in the province of God a man from the United States of America.

Who is right kept up on this this occult stuff? And he went to the authorities and they got him on TV and he blasted the whole thing into oblivion and the government forced him Out of this university connection, and they had to leave Manila.

But I ran into him out in the country. I was in a hotel. I came down the stairs with Petra Lusa the opera singer from Chicago. And I see some men sitting at a table in the foyer of the hotel. I stood there long enough to listen and I realized these guys are selling this individual here.

They're selling him TM. So I went down and I said to this man I ignored these guys were two or three of them, and I said this man listen. They're giving you straight garbage from the pit of hell. This is Hinduism that they're trying to sell to you, and they got real angry.

I just totally ignored them, and I told him you better get out of this and you know what he was a Christian. He was a Christian. And he thanked us and he walked away. But dear people we need to be sending evangelist in these countries.

They're wide open the Mormons are sending the jewel witnesses are sending and they're making all kinds of converts. And we Christians are sound asleep enjoying our incomes and all the rest of it, you know.

And letting the world sit down to hell. Do you remember what happened when nobody paid any attention to Absalom? He said Joab's barley field on fire, and then he got action. And that's what's happening today those third world countries if we don't send the gospel to them someday.

They'll set our barley fields on fire. That's what they'll do and God let him do it. I think if we don't waken up and lay hold of the work of God and stop living selfishly the way We're living most of us today.

Rejoice evermore as the Spirit leads pray without ceasing in everything give. Thanks as the Spirit leads give. Thanks. Take time make that the Spirit isn't going to ask you. When you're in the air diving from the springboard into the pool.

He isn't going to ask you to witness to somebody when you're doing that. He's not stupid. And if you're driving the car down a busy highway, he isn't going to say close your eyes and pray. People think the Spirit is stupid.

But there will be times when he'll come and he lay a burden on your heart. That's the time to listen. That's the time to obey. Rejoice evermore pray without ceasing and everything give. Thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

And what's the next verse quench not the Spirit don't quench the Holy Spirit. That's why we quench him we grieve him and consequently there's little evidence of his power in our heart and life. Was it 15 people raised their hands tonight who prayed for this meeting tonight when all of us should have prayed?

I'm sure the Spirit was trying to get the rest of us to pray, but we were too busy getting ready doing things. We do make time for the things that mean something to us and we can make time for these other things too in Exactly the same way.

It's all a matter of priorities, it's all a matter of how we see things now. Paul wrote a letter to a preacher named Timothy. And in the second epistle he wrote to Timothy. Do you know what he said? What he really said was if he said Timothy you need a revival.

Stirring Up the Gift of God

That's what he said. Well, how did Paul know that. I don't know. Maybe he heard it from somebody else. Maybe he sensed it in his spirit. Maybe the Lord revealed it to him, but he knew. And so here's what he said.

First Timothy. 2nd Timothy 1 6. He said I put you in remembrance. That is I want to remind you of something I Put you in remembrance that you stir up the gift of God. One translation says that you rekindle a fire.

Another translation says that you stir in the flame. And the Spanish Bible says that you revive the gift of God which is in you. Paul said by the putting on of my hands in the early days when the Apostles were still on earth.

People received the Spirit sometimes by the imposition of laying on of hands, but mostly they received the Spirit. Directly as in the house of Cornelius directly no laying on of hands as in the day of Pentecost directly no laying on of hands.

In Acts 19 Paul laid hands on some converts, and they received the Spirit so sometimes that way but normally mostly. Without any laying on of hands at all. I just mentioned that. And so he said Timothy Stirred a flame revived the gift of God which is in you.

Freedom from Fear and Witnessing for Christ

And the next verse he said. For God has not given us the spirit of fear. I Think this was Timothy's problem. Fears were taking over in his life. The fear of man brings a snare. May I ask you a question when did you last witness to anyone else about Jesus Christ?

You know what some of you would have to say if you had to say it you'd have to say I have never witnessed to anyone about Jesus Christ. And some of you have to think back. Well. It was six months ago, or maybe six years ago.

Because we love God so little and we love the souls of men so little and we're so full of fear. That we're dead. And we don't know it. Stirring to flame the gift of God which is in you God has not given us.

God has not given you the spirit of fear, but he says the spirit of power. That's the spirit of authority a spirit of power and a spirit of love. And a spirit of a sound mind a disciplined healthy mind.

That's the spirit that lives in every Christian. That's in this building tonight. What. No you're not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Which is in you what you have of God, and you're not your own for your bottle the price therefore glorify God.

In your body and in your spirit which are God's. So Paul is saying the same thing to the church of Corinth as he said to Timothy Stir up the gift of God. Revive the gift of God. Quench not the spirit grieve not the spirit rather be filled with the spirit.