Nature of Revival - Part 2 — Richard Owen Roberts

Nature of Revival: Awakening and the Church

The first word that I would call to your attention is the word awakening. Now, strangely, in Psalm 44, verse 23, God is urged to awaken. Now that does seem strange, doesn't it? When we think of the Lord, we think of one who neither slumbers nor sleeps.

But listen to these words from Psalm 44. Arouse thyself, why dost thou sleep, O Lord? Awake, do not reject us forever. Why dost thou hide thy face and forget our affliction and our oppression? For our soul has sunk down into the dust.

Our body cleaves to the earth. Rise up and be our help for the sake of thy lovingkindness. Now, did you ever ask God to wake up? It would hardly seem appropriate, would it? But you see, the psalmist is facing a time like we are facing, and he's coming at the issue from a different angle than we're going to come at it.

But because there is no sense of the presence of God in the society of that time, because it seems as if God has withdrawn his manifest presence and is at a great distance from them, the psalmist is urging God to awake, to arise.

Now, understanding things the way that we do, we know it's not because God is asleep that we're in this trouble as a nation. But the terrible moral and spiritual decline that we have been experiencing over the last two decades is not because God is tired, period, but because God is tired of our sin.

And therefore, he has withdrawn, not because he needs rest, but because he cannot tolerate pride in man. But this expression, awakening, some of you know, that the term revival and the term awakening have been used interchangeably.

For instance, during that period I spoke of a moment ago, in this country, from 1730 approximately until 1770, that we designate as the Great Awakening. The same movement of the Spirit of God was occurring in the United Kingdom, that is, in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and there it was described as the Evangelical Revival.

Here, the Great Awakening, there, the Evangelical Revival. Those two terms have been used as if they were synonyms throughout the ages. And yet, while there is some correctness in the use of the terms that way, I want to point out, dear friends, that there is also a wonderful distinction between the two terms.

And when we use these terms technically and carefully, we're speaking of two separate things that are desperately needed. The Church needs to be revived. And the world needs to be awakened. Right now, the world doesn't know that there is a holy God, a God of all majesty and power, a God who always has his way, a God who knows nothing of defeat, a God who is ever victorious.

The world doesn't know that. Right now, the world is under the impression that they are winning, that theirs is the victorious side of the conflict, that Christianity is dying, that it's a useless vestige from the past, that it might have served some significance long ago, but it is meaningless today.

And you tell them about Christ and they yawn in your face. You threaten them with the judgments of God and they look at you as if you were screwing. They don't think you know what you're talking about.

They are sure that there is no God anywhere big enough to threaten them. But let an awakening come and suddenly people who have no concept of God at all and no fear of God will be alarmed to realize that they have offended their own Creator and that the one who made them for his own glory is going to destroy them in an eternal fire and that the sins with which they have toyed and promoted and enjoyed are offensive in the eyes of the Holy One and that he is going to hold them responsible for every single sin.

Awakening is how we need an awakening. But dear friends, you must understand, no awakening is going to happen in the world until first there is a revival in the Church. Because right now the viewpoint that the world holds, they hold tenaciously because they have seen the failure of the Church.

I believe I mentioned last night that at the present time the average person cannot believe in Christ because they cannot believe in those who call themselves Christians. They see the bickering among the Churches.

Some of them work right next to some loudmouthed Christian who is always witnessing that their life is so hollow, so empty, so full of contradictions that the man of the world says, I regard Christianity with contempt.

I would never ever in all my life want to be like you. There is nothing about you that's attractive. There's nothing about you that I like. There's nothing about you that I would willingly duplicate. Let a revival come to the Church.

Let the Church be restored to the purity of Christ. Let the holiness of God descend upon the Church and then emanate out of the lives of the Church members and the world will begin to ask the question, what has made this incredible difference?

But the world won't ask that question until the Church has first been revived. Well, I don't know if you feel a deep longing for an awakening in the world, but let me put it to you from the standpoint of an old preacher in this work more than 50 years, traveling incessantly, pleading with people to heed the Word of the Lord.

And time after time after time, seeing congregations leave as they came, unaffected, unchanged. And all this time preaching everywhere I could, every time possible, always seeking to pour out my heart and the truth of the Word of God and watching our world decline, decline, decline.

People often say to me, old preacher, don't you get discouraged? Somebody said to me since I've been here in this Seattle area, what good has all your preaching done? And humanly speaking, how do I answer?

Appearance-wise, I would say no good at all. Or an occasional person here or there who seems to be out. But I tell you, I long for an awakening. I've often said to my father, oh Father, if just once I could preach, and every word would be hung on to, and every command obeyed, every auditor altered.

Just once, Lord, before I pass from hence, just once, could I see the response to the Word of God that is always appropriate. You ever feel that way, preachers? Longing, longing, longing for people to hear the Word of God.

I frequently read the passage in 1 Thessalonians 2, where Paul is commending the Thessalonians, and he says concerning them, I thank God that you heard me not as a man, but you heard me as the voice of God.

And you gave evidence that you heard God speaking by your transformed lives. Oh, how I long for such a day. An awakening in the world. Wouldn't you love, even if you're not a preacher, wouldn't you love to live at a time when every word of God that you quoted to your family, to your neighbors, to your friends, to those who work beside you in the workplace, every word of God fell upon them like a bolt of lightning.

And they hated it. Oh, dear friends, these terms, revival and awakening, are precious, precious terms. Don't ever get involved in a season of excitement in the church in which people holler and clap and stomp and bark and roar and roll and say, that's revival.

I don't know how some people can be excited by all that noise and nonsense. I long for the word of God to come like a mighty Russian river. The force and the power of which I've spoken and for the impact upon lives.

Revival as Fire and Purification

But let me leave the terms revival and awakening and draw some other terms to your attention. The word fire. Now, no doubt this expression in connection with revivals is derived from the experiences in the Old Testament where the fire of God fell and from the experience at Pentecost when a cloven tongue like as a fire rested on each believer.

But oh, the need of fire in our day. Just take your own personal life. Do you not frequently mourn before the throne of grace when you see the chaff in your own life? Isn't it astonishing and doesn't it hurt the heart to realize that even though we yearn to be holy and yearn to walk in power and yearn for Christ's likeness time after time after time when we look in the mirror of God's word we see that our lives are grown up with weeds.

That much of our strength is drained by stuff. My wife and I out of necessity had to put our home up for sale six years ago. And it's a lovely home. When we bought it we thought we would die there. But we had to sell it.

And it was for sale for six years. And finally it sold last Tuesday. And we had some advance warning. I mean we had a contract and we hoped it was going to go through. So we had to begin to get rid of stuff.

I'm still in bewilderment at the realization of how much stuff there was. I began when the contract was submitted six months ago moving my books, 75 ,000 of them mostly dragged up from the lower level carried by this poor old man up a flight of stairs.

Every day I took a van load down to our office building. Then over the last two months I had to deal with my wife's accumulation. I tell you it was incredible. I won't bore you with the details. But things were pulled out of closets and storage areas where I said, what is this?

I didn't have any notion we owned something like that. What will we do with it? What do we want it for? How did we ever get it? What made us keep it? Stuff! Here we are committed Christians earnestly desiring to move on with Christ but our lives are filled with stuff.

And even despite this horrendous experience I'm not sure we're cured of the accumulation of stuff. And every item that you save you got to do something with. You got to find some place to stick it. And unless you bury it you got to dust it.

And you got to move it around and arrange it so it looks decently. You don't want to be stumbling over the stuff. And so you surround it with furniture and more stuff. Revival is fire. Oh how blessed it would be to have the fire of God come down and consume the stuff.

And it's not just our personal lives. But much of what goes on in the church is about equal in value to the stuff that we put in our closets and storage areas. It would be a wonderful blessing if it was just consumed with the fire of God.

Now the world looks at us and they say well I don't think you're any different from us. And every once in a while we have a good look at ourselves and we have to ask where am I different from the world?

I'm the only man I know that lived in a house that occupied 10 ,000 square feet. And when I'm talking about stuff I'm not talking about a trunk load. 10 ,000 square feet filled with stuff. Oh at one time it was all justifiable.

Our offices were there. Employees were working out of our home. We needed every inch of that space. But when we no longer needed it we still had it and then we filled it with, well I don't need to use the word again, the fire of God.

And think about those sins that have plagued you going way back. Secret sins. Sins that nobody else knows anything about. Sins that you have groaned over, wept over, sought to repent of, longed for deliverance, even knew some measure of divine power over and then sooner or later their ugly head popped up again.

And you said, oh no, that sin is still a besetting sin. The fire of God consuming the besetting sin. Oh dear friends, when you're thinking about revival don't think about a little flurry of excitement.

Don't think about an intense period that lasts a few days or weeks. Think about the fire from heaven. That leads me to draw a contrast that I think is very urgent. Now I don't pretend that I'm the world's expert on revival but I do admit I'm the only man I know that spent his entire life on this subject.

And I do know I have the largest library in the world on the subject. So I'm centered or word-orientated. Now look, we know that we're called to pray for revival. What kind of revival have you been praying for?

Just anything that comes? Or have you been specific? If there is a choice, is there not wisdom in choosing wisely? If you have the right to aim a prayer instead of just scattering prayer, is there not wisdom in aiming the prayer toward the highest and the best?

Word-Centered and Experience-Centered Revival

Now perhaps you're not familiar with the terms I've used and wouldn't gain enough from my having said that to know what to do, so let me spell out for you the difference between these two. An experience-centered revival is a revival in which the focus is upon experiences.

Whereas a word-centered revival is a revival in which the focus is upon the Word of God. Now let me just ask you right now. Let's pretend this is just a simple classroom and we're all required to participate.

Which of those two is the best, the highest, the most needed? The word-centered revival. Now don't misunderstand. I'm not saying that one is mutually exclusive of the other. I'm not suggesting to you that when you have an experience-centered revival there is nothing of the Word of God any more than I'm suggesting when you have a word-centered revival there's nothing of experience.

I've used the term orientated and I've used the term centered. I'm saying one has as its focus experience and one has as its focus the Word of God. Now my deep conviction is that we are languishing and failing and the world is rushing pell-mell to hell because of the grievous neglect of the Word of God in the churches.

I listen to all the preaching I can and I groan regularly as I listen to the sermons which seem to me to bob around on the surface by and large and they rarely ever get to the real issues of the Word of God.

Now to help you to think with me about these matters I'm going to put the question to you can you illustrate from history a word-centered revival? A word-centered revival. Can you illustrate from history, in other words can you name a revival that was word-centered?

Alright, I'm hearing two things the Welch Revival and Whitefield and Whitefield would be during the period I've already described as the Great Awakening or the Evangelical Revival. Now there are two suggestions which of them is correct or are both of them correct?

Well, I don't want to assume that you know things you don't nor do I want to belittle what you do know but let me give you some help here. Yes, Wesley Whitfield? What was the Reformation? Alright, now let's start with this brother here.

We all are at least familiar with the term the Protestant Reformation. That happened of course in the 1500s or the 16th century. And what did that consist of? Well, essentially it consisted... Go ahead.

John Wycliffe in about the 1300s put the Bible in common language. Yes. He started it and the thesis that Luther nailed on the Catholic Church of things he felt needed to be returned to their original form started a lot of translations into the language of the people and that everybody would know their Bible.

I'm not sure you all heard what he said but he mentioned Wycliffe and his translation of the Bible into the common language. That sort of was a forerunner to this great work and then Luther, he mentioned, packed up his 95 thesis on the door of the Wittenberg Church and a whole stream of endeavors followed including translations of the scriptures into the languages of the people.

Now that movement was truly a word-centered revival. The thing that carried that movement was the great preaching of a whole host of men. I mean there's a large number there may be a relative few names that some of us are familiar with but there were vastly more men.

For instance, in the early days of that movement Luther himself was obviously converted to Christ. He then was used of the Holy Spirit at Wittenberg University and the entire theological faculty of Wittenberg University was touched by the life and ministry of Luther and they came to faith in Christ.

They then proceeded to train somewhere between 5 ,000 and 7 ,000 young men who became flaming evangelists, men who preached the Word of God. Shortly after the beginnings of the movement in Germany with Luther, John Calvin was also greatly touched by the Holy Spirit and he began training young men in Geneva and he trained somewhere between 3 ,000 and 5 ,000.

Now take the lower number in each case, 5 ,000 to 7 ,000 and 3 ,000 to 5 ,000. You've got 8 ,000 flaming evangelists well trained in the Word of God unleashed on Europe over a relatively short span of time.

Imagine what would happen in America if a few of the godly men in America were able to train 8 ,000 men. My, would I love to have the input into the lives of 8 ,000 men and unleash them on the land in one short period of time.

A marvelous example of a Word-centered revival. Now, this sister mentioned Wesley and Whitefield. Now that's a bit later. The movement under Luther, some of you recall, began in a public fashion in 1517.

The movement under Whitefield began at his conversion in the 1730s, so 200 years later. A few years later, Wesley was converted and became a part of that work of grace. But I could give you a long list of the names of men that I know who were powerful preachers in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland to a lesser extent in the United States.

Dozens and hundreds of men who were great preachers of the Word of God. They didn't toy with such subjects as comfort. They didn't feel burdened to encourage people. Now, most of our preachers today spend a high percentage of their time encouraging people and making them comfortable.

Well, the sad truth is, the average Christian is so comfortable, they're sound asleep. And to pile more comfort upon them is a grievous affront against God. These men preached the great doctrines of Scripture.

When I spoke of repentance, I said repentance from sin, repentance from dead works, and repentance from false teaching. These men preached great, powerful sermons on regeneration and on justification and on the power of the Holy Spirit in conviction and conversion, the great themes of Scripture.

But now, those are illustrations of a Word-centered revival. How about an experience-centered revival? Well, this brother over here, I think it was you, and I don't want to embarrass you, but if you were submitting the Welch revival as an example of a Word-centered revival, I've got to correct you, brother, right now.

I hope you'll take it in the warm spirit I give it. In Wales, God begun a great work in the 1500s. Wales is a little tiny nation on the far side of England called the Principality, with its own language and its own customs, very different from the English, but a very pagan nation.

And then in the 1500s, God began to stir and work. There were men like Walter Craddock and Babasur Powell who were brought to faith in Christ. Babasur Powell wrote a most interesting book. See if you can tell me its contents by its title.

A Bird in His Cage Chirping. Any notion of what the book might have contained? It was his prison epistle. As John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress while in prison, and Paul the Apostle wrote glorious books while in prison, Babasur Powell was in prison for openly preaching Christ on street corners and everywhere he could draw crowds, and he wrote his Bird in the Cage Chirping, his witness of the testimony of Jesus Christ while in prison for the faith.

But that was the beginning of a movement that marched onward year after year after year. Some have estimated 60 or 70 mighty revivals affecting the principality of Wales between the 1500s and the end of the last century.

Then in 1904, the last of this wonderful series of revivals occurred. Touching 1904 and 1905. But it was an experience-centered revival. Now, did you hear what I said a moment ago? It was the last of a long series.

Do you think we need now the last of a series? Wouldn't you agree, brother, we need the first of a series, not the last. Now, we're not predicting the end times. We don't know when our Lord is going to return.

We're ready to bow to him as soon as he arrives. He may come tonight. It may be a thousand years away. And in that we don't know when he's coming, we must think of the little ones. Do you think of the little ones?

While I'm an old man, I think of the little ones just about every day. We moved, as I said, from our big house, and we're crammed now into a tiny little apartment, and we have the joy of living where our son and his family and our daughter all live.

And every day the little ones are around. When I'm home, they're hanging on to my leg, they're sitting on my lap, they're breathing their sweet nothings in my ears. The little ones. And for the sake of the little ones, I have to carry an increasing burden for revival.

Can I contentedly live in a day of moral and spiritual decline when the little ones are clinging to my knee? Can I say, oh, who cares what happens when the little ones are under heat? Must my heart not be stirred with anguish and concern?

Oh God, for the sake of the little ones, begin another great series of revivals. But Lord, please, don't let it be an experience-centered revival. Let it be a word-centered revival. You say, Mr. Roberts, I'm not clear why you would make that distinction.

The Limits of Experience-Centered Revival

Let me tell you. Experience-centered revivals are short-lived. Some of you may be aware of the fact that somewhere between three and four years ago there was a stirring of the Holy Spirit that began at Howard Payne University down in Texas.

It was a very legitimate work of God. University students were greatly moved, and many of them rushed to the microphone and confessed unbelievably wicked sins. I was immediately alert and aware of that movement, and the week that it was happening, I was in touch with this man who God was using in that situation and we conversed about it.

The next week, another man from Texas called, and he said, Mr. Roberts, have you heard any news from Fort Worth today? No, I said, not yet. He said it's Southwestern, that's the largest theological seminary in the world.

Between three and four thousand students. He said that Southwestern Chapel is still going on. It began at ten. It was then between three and four in the afternoon. Deep stirring of the Holy Spirit. I said, thank you for calling.

I'm glad for good news. My son who works with me was standing nearby, and when I hung the phone up, he said, Dad, what was that? Oh, I said, good news from Texas. Stirrings of the Spirit at Southwestern Seminary.

He said, Dad, give me the phone. So I handed the phone across the table to him, and immediately he rang the college, which is next to our office, Wheaton College. He got one of the professors, and he said, Professor, do you know what's happening at Southwestern today?

No, haven't heard anything, said the professor. Tell me. So my son passed on the news. And the professor said, we must get some of those students from Texas to come to Wheaton College. And my son said, Dad, we'll be glad to work with you on that.

So in a week or two, some students from Texas came up to Wheaton, Illinois. And the students meet regularly on Sunday night at about 8 .30 after the churches have had their evening service in what they call the World Christian Fellowship.

And so these students from Texas spoke at Wheaton College on a Sunday night. And that meeting, if my memory is correct, went on until 4 in the morning. Deep, deep conviction, powerful stirring. The administration allowed them to meet again the next night after 9 o 'clock.

And a lot of big, great big trash bags were brought. And the students confessed to drug addiction and pornography addiction and immoral deeds and all kinds of things. And for four or five days, they met every night in a bigger auditorium as the week progressed.

And a powerful, powerful sense of conviction touched hundreds and hundreds of the students. But then it was over. It was a word, or excuse me, an experience-orientated revival. It didn't last. It had good effect.

It was needed. It was wonderful. We thank God for it. But I'll tell you plainly, Wheaton College needs a word-centered revival. Within a few weeks of that movement being over, all the same sins began to appear again.

And sadly, while it touched students, it didn't touch faculty. Now, those of you who know how to use your brain know that when you have a university revival and it touches only students, you have to have one every four years.

But if it touches faculty, then it won't be needed so frequently. But now, here's my point in telling you this precious account. No one on the faculty—I was one time on the faculty, but I was not at this time, nor am I now— no one saw the necessity of preaching.

And so there was no preaching done during that season of grace. Later—now listen carefully— later, there were students who had gone to the microphone and confessed horrendous sins, who later wrote articles condemning the movement, saying they had been forward, they had confessed, but the revival was a fraud, because they were right back when they wrote in the sins that they had confessed.

Now, dear friends, you see—now listen— there is a great difference between confession and repentance. But the students weren't told that. It's not fair to expect students to know that. Somebody, you see, should have grasped that golden opportunity and should have insisted on profound preaching of the Word of God.

So I want you to realize that an experience-orientated revival will be short-lived, it will have many who are touched who fall away, and it will not result in major social renovations. Now, we live at a time when we already have, without revival, all kinds of people who made a good beginning, as I stated from Hebrews, but are nowhere now.

We don't want to add to that number who fall away. We are already at a time when there's a terrible paucity of the preaching of the Word of God. We can't afford any more neglect of the Word of God, and we are living at a time when there are deep social problems that need to be corrected and will be corrected by Christians who are thoroughly informed biblically and utterly committed to changing the world by the power of the cross of Christ.

As long as you're led to pray for revival, pray for a revival that is centered on the Word of God. And because some of you are leaders, and by God's grace placed in positions of authority, I urge you, don't step aside when revival comes.

Revival in Wales and the Need for a Radical Turnaround

Now, let me tell you what happened in Wales. There was this stirring. It had actually begun in a quiet way in numerous places. Then a young man, we bear the same name but we're not related, my family came from Wales, but Wales is a divided nation.

There are two sections, North and South, and there's no connection essentially between the two. My family came from North Wales. The man of whom I speak, Evan Roberts, came from South Wales. Evan Roberts was a student in a Bible school.

He felt greatly burdened to go home, and he went home and asked his pastor if he could lead a special meeting. And God just quickened the occasion, and a great revival began in Walthall in South Wales.

But Evan wasn't a preacher. He didn't know how. He didn't have an adequate sense of the Word of God to preach, and so the movement focused on experience. There were wonderful converts, many marvelously revived, and others awakened and converted.

But the revival of Wales in 1945, now listen carefully, it was only an interruption of a downward slide. Do we need an interruption? We have been sliding downhill steadily for more than two decades. How much help would there be in interrupting that downward slide for six months?

And then the slide continues. Oh, dear friend, surely your heart tells you we need a radical turnaround, and things need to move up, broadward, instead of down, hellward. And it's the preaching of the Word of God.

So if you are in a position of leadership and the Spirit of God begins to stir, don't you dare focus on experience. This is what's happened in Toronto and Pensacola. There is some preaching, but they are not what would be called word-centered movements.

They're experience-centered movements. There's some validity. I would never cheapen the word revival to define what's happening in those places and say that's revival. That's not what I'm praying for.

It's not what I know our nation needs. Now, as I said earlier, don't misunderstand. I'm not saying to you that when there's great preaching of the Word of God there is no experience. Why, indeed, the most marvelous experiences of all come directly through the Word of God.

The profound and the lasting experience. Pastor, did you ever have the joy of preaching and as you were preaching you saw someone come alive during the preaching? This dear man shakes his head and this brother shakes his head.

Those of us who preach and who at least occasionally know something of the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon our preaching, we watch people come alive. We see sweeping over their faces a radical alteration.

They are never, ever the same again when they have been quickened by the Spirit and brought to life in Christ Jesus. The preaching of the Word, I'm saying to you, produces the most profound experiences.

But apart from the preaching of the Word one can have very exciting experiences which may be valid or may not. So I am not urging the abandonment of interest in experience but the focus upon the Word of God.

Fullness and Overflowing Grace

Well, I have not lost track of the direction I began in. I told you that we have to think of the terms revival and awakening and fire and then I said now is the appropriate time for me to insert this distinction between the Word-centered and the experience-centered revival.

But I come back now to glance at my notes and I mentioned to you that another term that we use in connection with revival is the term fullness. Fullness. And oh, what a precious term. I wonder how many of you could, if I gave opportunity and I'm not going to do so, leap to your feet and say, I am enjoying the continual fullness of the Lord.

Oh, I would like to think that every one of us knows something of fullness and have had blessed experiences in which we found ourselves full. But let me tell you how I see the church scene today. And I can't see that there's any difference between Lutherans and Baptists and Pentecostals of various stripes and Episcopalians and Methodists and Presbyterians and the rest.

I don't see any difference. We all seem to be suffering in the same way. It sounds to me as I listen to sermons and from time to time I even attend Sunday school classes and it sounds to me like a good bit of what's being done is someone who is serving the Lord from a nearly empty vessel.

And you listen to the sermon and this is how it feels to me. This poor man who is about to preach has been down in the bottom of the vessel of his life with a lousy little sponge. He's working among the dregs of the cup as we describe it.

He's down there with this sponge trying to get a little something out of the bottom of a nearly empty life. And then he shows up in the pulpit with that lousy little sponge and he wrings that sponge and he twists it and he bends it and he squashes it and he wrings it and finally out comes a sour little drop.

And you go away worse than you did because there's nothing refreshing in the dregs of the cup. But the word fullness is used in connection with revival. And oh how blessed it is to catch the significance of this.

In seasons of revival God opens the portals of heaven and he begins to pour his blessings down. Here's a brother with a large cup and the portal's open just above his head and the Lord starts to pour and pour and pour and the brother hollers out, I'm full now, Lord!

But the windows of heaven are still open and the pouring is still going on and on and on. And soon this dear brother is spilling in every direction. The fresh blessings from heaven filled to overflowing.

My dear friends, there is desperate need of that kind of fullness. Filled to overflowing. And you can't conceive of a genuine revival where there is not that overflow of the already filled cup. Now the world is never spilled upon out of our lives by anything other than our lives contain.

If somebody knocks up against you and you spill out of the cup of your life you can only spill its contents. And suppose there's bitterness in the cup. Suppose you've got some gripe against God himself or some grievance with someone in the church.

That's what you're going to spill. But oh, to be filled with overflowing with the fresh graces of Christ and then every time we're jostled or knocked or poked and spilled it's the blessings from heaven that we spill.

Revival as the Manifestation of God’s Glory

Another term, I've got to look at my watch. Oh, here it is, twelve o 'clock. I'll finish this this afternoon. But let me give you one more word. The word glory. Glory. You see, this is a word regularly used pertaining to revival.

Glory. I don't know whether you've got all of our books out on your tables, brother, but we have put out a book called Glory Filled the Land. We have another book entitled Scotland Saw His Glory. And all of you can remember that occasion when Moses had been up on the mountain with God and the people had complained to Aaron and he had built the golden calf and they had sinned wickedly against our father.

And how when Moses saw what they had done he smashed those tables of stone. And God said, Now Moses, you get busy and you lead this people to the place where I have sent you. I will not go with you. I will send an angel.

And Moses stubbornly said, Lord, if you don't go with us, we're not going anywhere. And the Lord said, Moses, I like the way you do things. All right, I won't send an angel. I'll go with you again myself.

And then, full of courage, Moses says to the Lord, Lord, show me your glory. So the Lord says, Come on back to the mountain. Moses, stand there in the cleft of the rock. Let me cover you with my hand and let me parade all my goodness before you.

Moses asked for glory and God showed him his goodness. A season of revival is a time when the goodness of God is manifested in the land and the goodness of God is His glory. Some of us are people that know nothing of the glory of God.