Revival and Prayer — Bill McLeod

Revival Comes Through Prayer, Not Planning

Like Paul said, we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. Him, of course. Revival never comes because of good preaching. Revival never comes because of good advertising.

Revival doesn't come because a lot of churches got together and planned to have revival meetings. To illustrate this, in South Korea many years ago, they had a tremendous revival. Some hundreds of thousands of people were converted.

They decided to invite Dr. Reuben Archer Torrey, a great evangelist, to come in expecting that when he came in they'd have a repeat of what happened a year or so before. They were terribly disappointed.

Souls were saved, of course. There was certainly not any sense of the word. The disciples, the twelve apostles, after the resurrection, not too many Christians probably understand this, but Christ spent forty days with the twelve, preaching for forty days by Jesus.

No revival came. Notice that? And after ten days of prayer, we had Pentecost. Show us clearly that there's just one way for revival to come. That is through prayer. This is often, of course, forgotten.

In chapter four, kind of an extension of Pentecost, it says, when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.

And it goes on to say, but the apostles were of great power. The apostles gave witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. The second Pentecost, and it happened while they were seeking for revival.

Perseverance in Prayer

There's a need for perseverance. In chapter six, it ends up, verse eighteen,. He prayed always with all prayer and supplication and spirit, and watching thereunto all perseverance for all saints. And Paul adds in for me.

Persevering in prayer, not giving up quickly. This often happens. You know, George Mueller, the famous man of faith and prayer, he prayed for two men for their salvation. He prayed daily for forty years.

He was saved about a year before Mueller died. The other guy was saved about a year after he died. But he prayed daily for forty years. Men to be saved. We often give up after six months. Reading recently, as I was, some of Edward Moore's books on revival, and he's done a marvelous job for the Church of God, and all the research he's done.

If a revival occurred anywhere in the world at any time, he would find out about it, and then incorporate it in one of his books somewhere. And I read an amazing account of one church, probably 130 years ago in the States.

They decided they needed revival. So they started to pray. Do you know what they did? They had three meetings, three prayer meetings every day. One at seven in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening.

For two years, they never quit. And when revival came, it was a mighty, powerful work of God. So when you think of that, and think of the way that churches today prepare for revival, I go to church sometimes and I ask the pastor what they did by way of prayer preparation.

He may say something that goes, Well, you know, Bill, they had two extra prayer meetings. And I just groan. And they expect me to bring revival in a suitcase. And I can't do that. Most people got to get a burden from God, and revival would come.

Sometimes a single church. Sometimes several churches. Sometimes many churches. The great revival in the United States in 1858. There were thousands of prayer meetings all over the country. Christians everywhere were praying for revival.

And when it came, it was a week. Every ten weeks, half a million converts. And the first missionaries went to the South Sea Islands many years ago. Now in those days, the South were cannibals. And missionaries often saw people roasted over the fire.

This time it was hawks. And in 14 years, they never saw a convert. Not even one. But they didn't give up. But ascending society in Scotland, finding society in it. You know, nothing's happening. And we'll have to recall these missionaries and send them to some field that is more open.

So they wrote the letter. Of course, it came on a ship. But that ship went to where they were. Another ship came from where they were with a note on it. For the ascending society, revival has come. Thousands and thousands of people were converted during that awakening.

It swept all through those islands. But these men, they prayed and waited and called on God for 14 years. And so sometimes you say, well, that's taking too long. Is it really taking too long? Or is it just a relapse in Africa?

I don't remember the country now. The story's in a book I have in my library. And they've done a lot of evangelism. And hundreds of people have professed to be converted. Twenty or so responsibility. Three or four years of this, the whole outfit were backslidden.

All the disciples were backslidden too. And they didn't know what to do. What in the world? This is not Christianity. One extra prayer meeting a month. They were having one a week, you see. But they added one a month and nothing happened.

So then they added two a month and nothing happened. And then they added three a month. Finally got to a place where they were praying three days a week and nothing happened. Finally got to a place. I mean, they were desperate.

Prayer meeting every day of the month and year. And this went on, I think, for eight or nine months and one night. While they were praying in the church, they heard a great wind coming. So they rushed to close the windows.

They thought it was a storm. And it was not. It was the Holy Spirit. And the whole place was shaken. Then there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of converts who walked with God. This is a backslider we've hardly ever known.

But again, it happened, you see. But we have to do the same. You know, Jacob, a chaplain in Genesis 32. He said, let me go because the day is breaking. And he said, I will not let you go until you bless me.

And that's the attitude we have to have. Whether we're praying for the conversion of some close friend or relative, whatever. Or whether we're praying for revival. We cannot give up. The angel is asking me to give up.

I guess I better give up. But he didn't. Of course, he had some circumstances that were crushing him down because he knew. If he didn't get an answer from God, and his brother Esau showed up in a deer to a 400 armed service, he'd be dead.

And he knew that. And sometimes, you know, God puts us into a situation where there's no way out. My brother Keith and Adam promised each other they would never, ever become Christians. The woman said, your brother's in trouble.

You better come and talk to him. I'm so old. I'm going to be saved and I'll let him procrastinate. Details here, but she made very rough for him for two years. Gave up on him, but he didn't give up. He just kept praying.

He didn't dare pray or read the Bible when she was in the house because if she caught him praying, she'd be kicking him or maybe kick the Bible out of his hands or whatever. This went on for two years.

And then she got converted. After the wedding, God called him as an evangelist. He's with the Lord in glory now. You see, the problem was this. That handshake didn't mean a thing because many of us were praying daily for Keith to be converted.

I should add this probably because it was true. The night before I saw him, that night he had planned to take his life and he put the rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger and it didn't go off. So he put a different shell in and it still didn't go off.

In the morning, he woke up in bed. He told me, I don't know how I got him to the bed. Well, you know, God was in charge because when people are praying and believing God, one thing God will never do is fail.

I'd appreciate it. And amen. Okay. We would have come into a night, Paul, once again, but Satan hindered us. So Satan can hinder the work of God. He can hinder you. He can hinder me. But he can't stop.

He can hinder, but he can't stop. Keep that clearly in mind. Remember in the book of Daniel, it talks about a certain evil prince. I think it was one of the demons that was being referred to. And for 21 days, he hindered the progress of the work of God.

Spiritual Warfare and Evangelistic Boldness

And so we wrestle. It's a wrestling match. We're wrestling against wicked spirits who are called in Ephesians chapter 6, the rulers of the darkness of this world. You think that's true? That's an awful thought.

Really. But there are people, demons, who are dedicated to keeping the world in darkness. They'll oppose every honest effort to win the soul of Christ. Any honest evangelistic effort or missionary program, they'll oppose that because they're the rulers of the darkness of this world.

And you need to know that. Know who your enemy is and why they're opposing us and how they're opposing us. That's why you have trouble giving us tracts. That's why you have trouble witnessing for Christ.

These demons are trying to shut us up. Christ said, the things that they've heard in the ear of the prophets, preach on the housetops. Christians get talking about, we've had a great time lately, my wife and I get invited out for meals in a restaurant or whatever, and get talking about the Lord.

Then watch the people around. Everybody quits talking and they listen. And sometimes they turn. I remember one time a guy here was sitting right opposite us, and I think it was his mother here, and they were talking and all of a sudden they turned and they faced us and they took everything he said, you know.

So when we got up to go, my eyes caught his eyes and he smiled and I smiled and I offered him a gospel bread. Thank you so much, he said. He got his glasses, stuck them up, started to read, you know. But usually when Christians are talking about the Lord and the sinner walks by, they begin to whisper, you know.

They hope you won't hear what they're saying, you know. Isn't that how it goes? I mean, that's how it often goes. So ashamed, you know. Ashamed of Jesus, can it be a normal man ashamed of me? It so often is like that.

I'm sitting today in the Garden City waiting for my wife. You know how it happens, guys, your wife said I'll be away for five minutes and 30 minutes later she hasn't shown up yet. Anyway, I'm sitting there and a fellow came and sat beside me.

And he said, what's the time? And I told him, he had a watch, but he said, as far as I could see he was almost blind, he couldn't see. So he said to me, you know how old my man gets? You know, like he'd be past 80 if he had not heard his feelings, you know.

Well, they said there's an age in it, but it's 98. 98 years old. And so we got talking, you know, he didn't know who I was. He never wants to use, you know, any bad language or anything. He just kept talking.

He appreciated his mother because his mother had taught him that things just didn't happen. There's a creator behind creation. Now, he wasn't a Christian. But he was sitting there in the Red Room. I had a chance to share with him.

He didn't accept Christ. He had to go finally, but he had his hands in front of his face and he couldn't see my face. And they all looked at us together. And, you know, if you think of him, pray for him, I didn't get his name.

He told me he was Ukrainian. Oh, yes, he said, I'm Scotch-Ukrainian. I don't know why he got the Scots in there, but he was married. Maybe his wife was Scotch, I don't know. But listen, God gives us a lot of God.

The guy right next to me, he was sitting here looking this way. I'm sitting here. My wife is here. And he never moved. I checked the guy out. It didn't look like he was even breathing, you know. Just sat, staring straight ahead.

So I said, Lord, what's up? And he said, well, the man is in need, you know. So I tapped him on the shoulder and very slowly put him in the Gospel tract. And he finally, same posture again, staring straight ahead, you know.

I never got to talk to him, actually. But I did give him the Gospel tract. And, of course, prayed for him later on. But God, you know, when we go out, dear people, as a Christian believer, we should be looking for opportunities.

We should be expecting that God will give us opportunities to share Christ with someone else. I got shot one time. There's a cop there, and I just went, and he smiled, and I smiled back. So we'll talk to him then, you know.

There's many ways we can do this, but we can't do it all if we're afraid. And if we're not really believing that God will use us. He wants to use us. Any of us can be used by God if we're willing to let Him use us.

Christ's Authority Over the Enemy

But Satan hindered us. In Revelation 12, 17 it says, The dragon went out to make war with those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Is that you? He makes war against you then.

Make up your mind. Don't worry about it. When the seven returned, Christ sent them up to preach the kingdom of God. And He said, Heal the sick. He didn't tell them to cast out demons. He just told them to heal the sick.

When they came back, they came back with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject unto us through your name. And Christ said, I beheld Satan as a lightning fall from heaven, which is a quotation from Isaiah 14.

And then He said, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, which in the Bible are often a symbol of those demon powers, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall the enemies hurt you, notwithstanding in this do not rejoice, that the spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.

Written in heaven, O glorious thought. This consolation to me Christ has brought. I give unto you power over all the powers. Two different words in the Greek. Exousia is the first word, authority. Over all the dunamis of the enemy.

We've got power over all the power of the devil. He doesn't want you to know that. You never hear it or don't believe it. People, it's true. All power. But we're not to rejoice in that, but rather rejoice because our names are written in heaven.

So the devil can bring people against you. He can build a big wall and all that, but David said, by my God I've run through a troop, and by my God I've leaped over a wall. No matter how high the wall is, if God is with you, you can jump over the wall.

So don't give up because people are against you. Maybe in your own house, sometimes relatives you know make it very hard for a Christian believer, and sometimes you might be the only believer in a home, and they're giving you a hard time.

Don't worry about that. Trust in God. Do the right thing. God will be with you, and you'll have the joy of seeing others find Christ as well. In Luke 11, you know, Jesus was asked about the truth of life.

So he gave his father the Lord's Prayer, and then he said, he told a parable, which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and shall say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves. And he from within shall answer and say, Tell him you're not.

The door is now shut. My children want me in bed. I cannot rise. I give you. He went on to say, I have said to you, though he will not rise and give them because he is his friend, that because of his importunity, he will rise and give them as many as he needs.

And I say unto you that, is actually the asking, the seeking, the knocking. And he ends up by saying in verse 13, If you then be needful among them, give good gifts as your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

They were asking for help and prayer. And he was talking about the Holy Spirit. Because the Bible says, we're to pray in the Spirit. We're told that twice. As the Spirit leads, for whom the Spirit leads us, when the Spirit leads us, praying in the Holy Ghost.

Extremely important. And so the word importunity has been defined as shameless asking. Or asking that will not be enough. You're the person who has somebody that has a spiritual need. You don't have anything to give them.

You don't understand that. We don't have anything to give them in our own. But we have a friend who can. He's got everything we need. We go to him at midnight. We ask for help and we don't get it. And you're something new.

Of course, what is he talking about here again? His perseverance. Stay with it. Wait on God. Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage. And he shall strengthen your heart. That's very important. And Luke 18.

He said almost the same thing. He spoke a parable. Jesus did to this end. That men are always to pray and not to think. One translation says, not to give up. Not to turn coward. Men are always to pray.

In other words, never give up. God isn't dead. He may not be speaking at the moment. Give God time. He went on to say in that parable, Luke 18. He said, that the elect of God may cry day and night. But he said this, God will avenge them, answer them, speedily.

Is that speedily? As speedily as possible. Change may be for some of your friends to be converted. Some of your family members even. Give God time. Don't try and rush God. Let God do it in his own way and time.

But keep praying. Don't give up. Don't turn coward. Don't stop praying. Keep the Bible. That's so important. Matthew 14. Start finishing on when she cried to Jesus because she had a demon possessed daughter.

And he said, It's not right to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs. Whoa, man. Christ said that? He called her a dog because she was a Gentile? Who? How can this be? How did she handle it? Somehow she sensed who Jesus was.

And she said, That's true, Lord. I'm a dog. Okay, I'm a dog. Yet even the dog seems to have come to fall from the master's table. Oh, man. Crazy you say. Be that you mean what you say. So, if the first answer is no, let me not be the last answer.

I'm not saying we should keep asking for something that God doesn't want to give. But we have to understand this. And I should deal with this for a moment or two. We're not asking for a revival and that for souls to be saved.

So that there'll be more money in the church. And so things at home will be more pleasant. Without being a stronger witness for God, can you see that they're miraculous? Never. We're told in 1 Corinthians 6, the word of God says this.

You are not your own. You're a part of the place. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's. Then in Ephesians 3 .21, unto him, unto God, be glory in the church. Through Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end.

Amen. So it's for the glory of God. We're praying for a revival for the glory of God. Bertrand Russell in England once said, I could welcome Jesus Christ into my house if he would leave his leprous bride outside my house.

A leprous bride. And what he saw in the church and his circles probably was exactly that. The world needs to see real Christianity. And they often don't see it in church people at all. And unfortunately, they sometimes don't see it in evangelical believers either.

Revival for the Glory of God

Whatever we do, we're to do it for the glory of God. So when you're praying about something, is it for the glory of God? Is it for your own welfare, your own good? I'll make sure it's for the glory of God.

Amen. And then God will answer. In, of course, his own. Some of you know this, but I came from a broken home. Actually, it's been an advantage to me because in the States, every second young person you talk to comes from a broken home, you know.

And so you can tell them, I know what you're talking about. Now, when my parents were Christians, I think they both loved those four boys because they knew of each other, you know. They couldn't talk about the scrapping.

I mean, they didn't hate each other. I mean, but, you know, there were bad words and stuff. So finally, my mother took off. There was a court case. I remember that. A kid of maybe seven or eight, I was then.

Being in court and all that. And then she was gone. And then Dad was the cook. And I'm telling you something. Oh, I got so tired of eating cabbage soup. Amen. After longs in a car accident, could have been killed.

And this made her serious about eternal matters. And she sought the Lord and was saved. So one day Dad said, your mother's coming back, but you don't have to listen to her religious talk. Oh, we didn't know what that meant.

We didn't care about that because we knew she was a good cook, you know. So Mother came home. But something happened here that I'm not sure. She came home. She told us many years later. The first thing she did was commit us four boys and Dad.

And that thing happened for 14 years. While her brother Don was 23 years of age. And then the devil got on her back one day and said, listen, this prayer stuff doesn't work. This faith doesn't. That's not working.

There's not one of your kids are Christians. And she said it was the worst day she ever put in. But before the sun went down that night, she threw the devil off her back. And she just said, I'm trusting my God.

I don't care what. I don't care how long it takes. But you know, they say if you're not converting your teens, your possibility of becoming a Christian is almost nil. I don't believe that for a minute.

I'll tell you why. My brother Don was 24 when he was converted. I was 22 when I was converted. My brother Bob was converted when he was 21 or 22. And my brother Keith, the one that shook hands and promised not to become.

He wasn't converted until he was 35. My dad wasn't converted until he was 74. But she got us all. I thank God so much for my mom. She knew how to pray. I remember once she said, You know, she says she never called me a real Christian.

I think I'm getting cold. She said, I haven't led us all to Christ in six months. That's a criterion by which we judge ourselves. I'll quote her in. Thank God for my mom. She said, don't you believe God?

Day after day after day. I thank God for this. People will say, Revival changed me. Really? Christ changed you? Very careful how you share that because I've heard it again and again. Oh, revival is so much in my life.

No, it didn't. Christ did so much in you. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. Give the glory to Christ. We used to sing a lot in revival circles.

We'll give the glory to Jesus and dwell in His love, His wonderful love. We'll give the glory to Jesus and tell of His wonderful love. You can't tell until you dwell. That's the idea of the song. Anyway, give God the glory.

Give Christ the glory. It wasn't revival that did it. Revival, perhaps. We can have that problem. It works in Ephesians to say that it's a shame even to speak of those things that are done by some people in secret.

Madame O 'Hara was a famous, she was an atheist, and lots of lectures with preachers and the post-Christianity and the Bible and all this kind of stuff. And she had a son who became, believe it or not, a Christian.

She was furious. Who's been mucking around with my kids? She said, you know, he became a Christian. Then he wrote a book about his conversion. I read the book and I was really terribly disappointed. I don't doubt he became a Christian.

I don't remember how many pages he wrote, 200 pages or whatever. The first 185 pages or 190 pages dealt with his former life, all the times he'd been drunk and the women he'd slept with and the drugs he'd taken, all the miserable, wicked things he did.

The Bible says it's a shame even to speak of those things which were done to him in secret. You don't share those kind of things. That's garbage. That's self-glorification in a sense. I even heard of some Christians who backslid so they would have a better testimony when they had been drunk a few times and did some other wicked things.

Then they could talk about it. They had a good testimony. Listen, a friend of mine made that mistake. There were three of them, men. None of them married. They never got married. They're potato farmers outside of Transcona.

One of them became a Christian. He tried to influence his two brothers and he couldn't. Then he heard about a guy who'd been a bank robber and a cook in the States for many years, who'd been committed murder, was coming to Winnipeg.

He was going to be in Memorial Baptist. And so he got his brothers to go and listen. The cook tells the story, although he's yet to use it, you know, times he'd been drunk and all this kind of stuff. So on the way home, the boys were very silent, so he said to his brothers, what do you think about that?

And here's what they said. That wicked sinner needed to be saved. They're not like him. They don't need to be saved. They needed to hear it was somebody that had a good moral background who'd get saved.

That's what my dad needed. He kept, you know, if we ever talked about the order, he'd get so mad sometimes. I made my piece of government from Winnipeg to Carmel-by-the-Sea in California, and he built a house there.

Then he got talking. My dad was a very all his money in some harebrained scheme for gathering moss in the desert or something, and he lost all his money. Then he had to go and get a job in order to support himself.

I'll tell you, it's scary when God gets into a picture. So he got a job working in a mill, and the two guys who worked with him were both morning game believers. So they asked his mom, are you a morning game?

I'm sure my dad almost fainted the other way because he got away from us in Winnipeg going to California to get away from this morning game stuff. He was working with two guys, two Christians. And they dragged him off to church, and my dad got sick.

He came to see us not long after that, and one day he said to me, how come you never asked me to ask a blessing? I said, would you like to ask a blessing? Indeed, he said, why wouldn't a Christian like to ask a blessing?

It was his Presbyterian way of letting us know he was a Christian. So the Lord got him known to us. The place of faith in revival. Understand, all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing you shall receive.

All things whatsoever you desire when you pray, believe. The Greeks said, believe that you have received them and you shall have them. That's how far our faith has to go. You have to believe it's done.

You keep on praying, but you're believing God's going to do it. You never doubt that. All things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing you shall receive. Some find revival, some people think it doesn't, and some good men think it doesn't.

Faith and Expectation in Revival

Revivals began, they began just out of the blue. Something God did. No human element. But this didn't last for long. And after a short period of time, that kind of revival phased out. And then the Christians discovered that by praying, they could promote.

They could promote spiritual awakenings. So they began doing that. And here's one of the things he said, we were never satisfied with what he called insulated, we would use the word isolated, conversions.

And so that's fine, but that's not revival. So they said, we fasted and prayed and believed God until, listen carefully, until a Holy Ghost came on the scene and took the world out of our hands and made the whole community aware of God.

Then hundreds were converted. And then he added this, Captain Colton, who was a pastor, wrote the book. He said, this kind of revival never failed to come to a church that believed it would come. And it never came to a church that did not believe it would come.

Does anybody come up with that? Well, let me tell you something else that happened then. He was invited to go to a church for revival meetings. He had a revival message. Well, he went to see the church and the guy had 60 or 70 members.

He only had about 15 attending the prayer meeting. And so he told him, no, listen, you're not ready for revival. We are believing God for revival. He said, yeah, yeah, that's fine. But, you know, you only have a handful attending the prayer meeting.

You really expect it all. And so he begged off. But the guy kept saying, no, wait a minute, we're believing God for revival. And finally, he agreed to come. And revival broke. So powerful, they wound up in the biggest auditorium in the city.

Went on for a month or more. So many people were converted. But the city gave them the building to use for meetings as long as they needed it rent free. So faith has certainly, in my opinion, got a lot to do with revival.

It's not the only thing, but it certainly is, I think, a very important element. Well, will thou not revive us again that thy people may walk rejoicing in thee? You don't meet many rejoicing Christians today.

Sometimes we handle bad happenings worse than the world does. I remember hearing a couple one time they said, we don't care if somebody breaks into a house and we're on holidays, we're just not married to the house.

This is a Christian where I'm married to certain things and those things get touched. Then we got to pop. We shouldn't, you know. I sometimes hear the people put this thing in doxology, standing in the street watching your house burn and nobody makes any volunteers then.

But I say, listen, you should practice because you may have to do it someday. You know, we're living in a violent world and we think it isn't going to happen in Canada. You can't be too sure about that.

The way things are going, we may have rockets landing in our cities as well. We're very close to the end of the age and Revelation 11 tells us this, the picture there is of an angry world and an angry God on a commission course.

It says the nations were angry and thy wrath has come and the time of the dead that they should be judged. They should get rewarded for their service of the prophets and them a cure that ain't small and great and should destroy those who corrupt the earth.

We're very close to that. Why is the world angry? They're angry because their people, as I mentioned once before, that we've entered into a judgment mode. God has entered into a judgment mode with the nations of the world, not just with Israel.

And that's not good because you know, in Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Isaiah and other places in the Old Testament, God often judged other nations. He judged them all like the Assyrians, Assyrians and others, many of them.

Paul, listen, I think about 22 nations in one chapter that God judged for the sin. And God has four sword judgments, he said in Ezekiel 14, 21. What are they? The first of the sword, that's war. That's a judgment from God.

And then famine, and then pestilence, that's disease. And the fourth one is wild beasts of the earth. A week or two ago in Florida, six people were killed, not together, but separately by crocodiles. In Saskatchewan this last winter, a fellow went for a walk, didn't come back.

They went looking for him and found his remains. He'd been attacked by a bunch of wolves, killed and eaten. They have a program that's showing us that a picture of a guy was attacked by a single wolf and he was naked from the waist up.