Revival - Part 1 — L.E. Maxwell

A Call to Repentance and Revival from Joel

In Joel, chapter 2, we find a very pertinent scripture. Joel, chapter 2. Therefore also now saith the Lord,. 2 .12, 2 .12 of Joel,. Therefore also now saith the Lord, Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful.

Slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him, even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the Lord your God?

Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children. And those that suck the breast, let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.

Let the priests and ministers of the Lord weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them.

Margin says, Use a byword against them. Wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God? Why, isn't that a good scripture for awakening and revival? Now, I had thought of our having just a little group here this morning.

I didn't know there would be a crowd this size at all. But it comes to me that we don't need, our first or immediate need, put it that way, is not a lot more heavy, deep Bible teaching, have made alive that which we already know.

The words I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. And if you, those of you who were here the other day, the other evening, you recall that those who gave testimony, and that minister who gave testimony Sunday morning, you will have noticed that there was a great deep lot of already known truth, back of their lives, unacted upon, unresponded truth, unresponded to.

They knew a whole lot in the head. They had a lot of hearsay. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyes see of thee. That's the difference. And there's so much, there's so much truth known today.

We have enough truth to sink a battleship, I often say. But it has so little practical living reality, so that I felt that we ought to have a little concern, a real living concern with revival. Revival is, in a sense, beginning to touch the country.

Revival as a New Beginning of Obedience

I sometimes wish I had known in the days of the Lowry meetings what I have learned since. We, I believe, could have made a far greater scoop of souls in those days than we did, because you could go anywhere in the country and announce a meeting in the schoolhouse, and some souls would come to Christ.

That's something. That is something, especially in the country districts where, as a rule, people hadn't been thinking of God and caring little about God, and yet people would come together. They talked about the Lowry meetings, his messages, in the restaurants and on the streets, and I expect in the pool halls and bar rooms and everywhere else.

Well, that is a spirit settling on the country in answer to prayer, because when I first came here in 1922, 22, 23, along in there, it was a rare thing to hear of a soul being saved in the country. Maybe in some camp meetings an odd soul would be saved, but very, very few.

Just a very odd thing to hear of souls being saved. And during the Lowry meetings and for some time after that, it was rather a common thing to hear of, in a country district, several souls being saved.

Well, the word revival. Now, I'll be saying things that are new and old, but what difference does it make if it gets over to us? Spirit of faith and expectation for God's mighty moving and working. The word revival has been greatly misunderstood as though it were a season of special meetings.

I think you have been impressed lately, have you not, that the Sutera twins are looking for reviving work, and not merely to deliver some evangelistic messages. There's such a difference, really, between a series of evangelistic messages and meetings and what we would call revival breaking out.

Billy Graham says he's an evangelist doing the work of an evangelist. He says, I'm a candidate for revival. Now, he makes the distinction that we ought to make. The word revival has been greatly misunderstood, though, and what are called revival services.

I think that's a misnomer. It's misleading. Dr. Ironsides tells about a time when a certain church was having difficulty getting a certain speaker for a series of meetings. He was coming. He couldn't come.

And he could, but he couldn't. And finally, the poor pastor, in distraction, came to church to announce that because so-and-so was not coming, there would be no revival this year. So we have evangelistic services, pre-publicized and pre-scheduled special meetings, special nights when they bring the oldest grandmother or the most kids.

And so every night is a kind of a special and specially induced something to get a crowd, hoping they'll get more church members and the budget will step up a little and so on and so on. Oh, these are pathetic situations.

Now, the word revival suggests there has already been life. Revive. Again, life. That's what you're saying. Life again. Life has been imparted already, but that life is ebbing, is on the wane, has suffered eclipse and decline.

So Charles Finney was quite right in saying nothing else, revival is nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God on the part of God's children. Just as in the case of a converted sinner, the first step is deep repentance in a certain sense, repentance on the part of believers, getting down in deep humility, forsaking of sin.

That's the ongoing and the stepping up of the Christian life, reviving again the dying embers on the altars of revival. Of course, there can be no reviving where there's been no life to revive. But whenever Christians are revived, there will always be, there will always follow the conversion of sinners.

They will step aside to see this great sight, to see what it is. Surely God's in their midst. I wonder, I wonder if we couldn't turn to a psalm. What is that psalm? Is it a psalm, a hundred and... Huh, now I am stuck.

Psalm 126 and the Heathen Recognizing God's Great Work

I don't know, we'll find it. I know where it is on the page here, if I can get the right page. All right, 126, that's right. When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dreamed.

Amen. Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing. Then said they, now notice. Then said they where? Anybody? Among the heathen. Then said they among the heathen. The Lord hath done great things for them.

Listen to what the heathen are saying. The response is what now? Let's read it all together. The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. Well, amen. That's gladdening effects of deliverance from captivity.

Amen. All right. Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. And the margin says, in singing, he that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

My, that would make a good psalm for a good deliberate consideration. Be tempted to turn aside and take that instead of what I've got of the portion I have this morning. Well, there will always be the conversion of men.

They will say among the heathen, the Lord hath done great things for them, whereof they are glad. We need that kind of an awakening. That is an unusual visitation of God, not just the usual. There are times of visitation and then consolidation afterwards.

Consolidation of ground already gained. But there are seasons of special manifestation and visitation. I don't know that you can have the same heavy, mighty, unusual visitation all the time year round.

I think it would wear out of its effect. Familiarity, in a sense, would breed contempt. Well, but there are times when we need special visitation. And I think we're in one of those times now. I really do.

Because the heathen are saying today, where is their God? The God is dead movement and all that, don't you see? The heathen are saying it. But why should they be able to say it? Lord, turn again our captivity, that the heathen may have to say, the Lord has done something there again.

Ah, that's what we want. All right. Now, the time has come that judgment must begin where? 1 Peter 4, 18, I think it is. The time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God. Sin judged by the believer, his own sins, and sinners feel the impact.

When the saints feel the wickedness of sin, the worldly man says, Well, if they feel like that about it, what's going to happen to me? I thought so-and-so was a saintly fellow, and he's bewailing his imperfections and his sins and his failures.

Well, if he's crying like that over his condition, what must my condition be? Now, that's the way the impact works. And if the judgment first begin at us, what shall be the end of them that know not God and that fear not God?

What shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel, if judgment has to begin with us? See? Which it does. Revival, then, means God manifesting himself through human life, through spirit-filled channels and vessels, his redeeming power bursting forth in fruits and praise and righteousness and holiness, the reproduction of spiritual life and the flesh incarnation of the gladness and rapture of the gospel, people intoxicated with new wine and a heart cry for redeeming power in God's visitation of man.

Revival as God's Manifest Presence in the Church

Oh, beloved, you know that revival is the only possible answer to the situation of the present day. Otherwise, there's no hope. We're just more or less marking time, going in circles and keeping our Churchianity head above water.

That's about all we're doing. We're getting a little done, but there's no impact. The heathen are not saying, the Lord has done great things for them whereof they are glad. They're not saying that yet.

I like this place. Turn to Acts 3. I love this passage. Acts chapter 3. Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour, and a certain man, lame from his mother's womb, was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful.

Such Peter fastened his eyes upon him with John's head. Look on us! I'm glad he wasn't so ultra-humble that he couldn't say that. You know, some of us are so humble. I don't want you to look at me. I don't want you to see me.

I want you to just see the Lord. Well, hallelujah! Very well. So far, so good. But why shouldn't they see the Lord if they look on you? What are you so humble about? I don't want you to look on me. I just want you to look at the Lord.

What you mean is, I don't want to have the Lord so living in me that if they look at me, they're going to see the Lord. Come on. Coming right out of your hole now. Some of the people said, good. Peter fastened his eyes upon him with John's head.

Look on us! Look here! Here! Right here, please, your attention! Right now! Look here! Look on us! And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. He's looking for a copper. And Peter said, silver and gold have I none, but what I have, that I give.

You can't give what you don't have. Huh? Such as I have, give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get on your feet and get going. Christianity puts people on their feet, by the way. And if you've got anything worth giving, it puts people on their feet.

And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he leaping up stood and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God.

And all the people saw. Uh-huh. Saw him walking and praising God. And they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at the fact which had happened unto him.

And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John. Can't you see the fellow? He had one apostle in his left hand and another apostle in his right hand. And he had laid hold of these two fellows.

Look here, these two guys. I could just see him leaping on both his feet and had an apostle in each hand. Wasn't he going places? Oh, amen. He was worrying. He was going on all fours, wasn't he? Amen.

And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John. All the people ran together unto them in the course that is called Solomon's greatly what? Wondering. That's twice over to talk about wonder. When people lose a sense of wonder.

Now listen. Put it positively. When you finally come to have a sense of the wonder working of God and have an awareness of God, that's revival. When you lose a sense of wonder, you need to have revival.

These were wondering. And when Peter saw it. Now look. Look at the good combination here. When Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Or why look ye so earnestly on us?

Now. Now. He's disclaiming any and all honor. A moment ago he said, look on us. Come here. Give me your attention. In the name of Jesus, get up and get going. And the people come admiring now. Admiring Peter and John.

Oh, look. These men are the servants of the most high God. They do miracles. Wonderful fellows these. Why are you talking about? Why look ye so earnestly on us? As though by our own power and holiness we'd made this man to walk.

God has glorified his Son, Jesus Christ. That's what accounts for all this. You see, he's identified, in the first instance, he dissociates himself from all glory and honor in the second. That's a good, wholesome position, isn't it?

That's identification, using the authority of the name of Christ, dissociating himself so completely that God gets all the glory. Is that a good combination? Amen. But a sense of wonder reminds me of the incident I so often tell in connection with Revival.

The Welsh Revival and the Recovery of Spiritual Wonder

About a fellow by the name of Williams. I think I have his article someplace stashed away under the dust heaps of my stuff. But he was a man that could write on anything from a needle to a threshing machine at a moment's notice.

Quite a columnist. And when the Wales Revival broke out, his editorial seniors told him to go down to Wales and write up the Revival. They knew what it was, just so much emotion and so on and so on. But the rumor was running over the country about the Wales Revival.

It was so mighty a revival that even the mules down in the mines wouldn't work anymore because they were used to swearing and clubbing and cursing and kicking. And the saints down in the mines had become so civil and so sensible and so saintly that they didn't kick and curse and club the mules anymore, and the mules wouldn't work.

Yes, that's the history of the Wales Revival. So even the mules got the effect of it down in the mines. Well, this fellow and the preacher, his preacher, one of these no-good parasites, his preacher went down to write up the Revival.

They all knew what it was. And so the preacher's mother was down there in the center of the Revival. So they naturally went to her house. They got there about ten o 'clock at night. Uh-huh. Now, where's mother, says the preacher?

Oh, she's down at the meeting. Ten o 'clock? What? Meeting? This time of night? Nah. No. And this man, Williams, this columnist that was sent there to write up God, he decided, he says, This is what we came here for.

I'm going to meet you right now. Now we're going to see this thing. We're going to see. They wouldn't be there until ten o 'clock at night unless it's emotion, and that's what it is. I'm going right down there.

No, I'm going to bed, says the preacher. Well, the two of them, I guess, finally went. And the columnist dragging the preacher along, and they went down there, and there they were sitting there, and the local preacher was sitting there in tears in the midst of a lot of young people.

It was a young people's meeting, and the kids were sitting there all glowing, happy, tearful, rejoicing, and sharing and so on. And finally the preacher looked up. Brother, have you a word from the Lord for us?

A word from the Lord. He says, if he'd asked me to make a speech, I could have done that. But to put it like that, have you a word from the Lord for us? He said, that was a question that was baffling.

And he says that if he'd asked me, and he was such a man that he could have spoken on almost any subject on a moment's notice. He was just so versatile, clever. He became head of a mission later, after he got right with God.

Well, there he was, and he looked at all those children and their eager, expecting faces. What is the stranger going to give us now? Eyes all turned on him, and he looked at them, and he says, I opened my mouth and not a thing would come out.

Well, everything came out that was in. He says, I opened my mouth, and the most eloquent sermon I ever preached in my life. I said nothing. My, I look back in the time in Kansas City when I was asked to teach a Sunday school class before I was saved.

I was earnest, and I wanted to do better. And I got to that Sunday school class, and I can still see and feel the way I felt. There was two or three boys there, and I, I literally had nothing to say. Couldn't open my mouth without putting my foot in it.

And so there I was, and there this fellow was, and finally, do you know what he said? He looked at all these tear-stained faces and all these hungry little youngsters, and he said, oh, children, pray for me.

And they all gathered around him and pulled his coat and said, God bless you, mister, we'll pray for you. Wasn't that, wasn't that being caught nicely? Just imagine that highbrow piece of machinery going to write up God, and the kids come around, a little child shall lead them, and tug at his coat, God bless you, mister, we'll pray for you.

Well, he went, he went, finally he went back. He was all confused yet, of course. He went back to the house and couldn't sleep a wink that night, and then the preacher accounted for that. You know, you're unstrung.

You shouldn't have gone to that meeting too late for it. I guess the preacher went to bed and slept the sound as a dead onion would. He didn't have any, he had no convictions about anything. But this man, Williams, couldn't sleep all night, didn't sleep a wink.

He was so absolutely convicted but not converted yet. The next morning they got up and took a train where they heard that Evan Roberts was the head of the, he was the nominal head of the Wales Revival.

And so they took a train where he was. And on the train they wondered if they were going to get off the right station, I guess. So he, Williams said to the porter, where's Evan Roberts? I don't know, he says, I don't know.

Well, porter, where's the revival? I don't know, but it's in me. Porter on the train. He was being revived in his own soul. And so they got off the place, supposedly, and went to the church. And there the church was packed full of people.

It was early in the morning, early in the morning. When did this meeting begin? Last night, six o 'clock. And there they were, and he walked in, and they were singing, The Lamb, the Lamb that died for me, as only the Welsh could sing it.

Such harmony, such glory. He says, I saw it all. And there he was gloriously converted and became an out-and-out leader in the Church of Christ in Wales. And he was the head of the Northeast India General Mission for years.

Well, a sense—and he's the one where I got that phrase about Acts 3. When you lose a sense of wonder, that's what overcame him that night. Just a sense of wonder. The awe, the grandeur, the glory of the inescapable divine presence.

That's what we needed. We had a little of it the other night, but, oh, beloved, nothing as it might be yet. Nothing as it may be. I'll give you more of that as we go along. We need a sense of awe, a sense of wonder, a sense of the divine presence.

Holiness, Reverence, and the Exposure of Sin

Do you know what one of the biggest things we need, which a real sense of real revival will bring? A holy reverence and an exposure of immorality and sin. That's what we're going to see. Until we see that, we haven't got much of a spiritual revival.

The holiness of God hates this sin business. And we've got it on every bookshelf, on every newsstand, and in every paper, and over the radio, the four-letter words that have been used all the time. And less than ten years ago, they'd have been put off the air for using the very words they're using now.

And nobody's saying a word now. Nobody's caring. We need a sense of reverence and a sense of the awareness of God. Somebody has put it like this. When God is going to do something wonderful, He begins with a difficulty.

And when He's going to do something very wonderful, He begins with an impossibility. Amen. That's God doing strange and wonderful things. Now, one of the best expressions for revival you find in Acts 3 .19.

Times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. That's revival. Times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. Acts 3 .19. In the Wales revival, I had with me on my first mission field out here in the West, a man by the name of Young.

He was an oldster, about 65 or 70 at the time. Well, that's getting up to middle age. Anyway. And he told me about the Wales revival. Marvels of the Wales revival. He'd seen it. And he had the language.

He was a good evangelist. And I said, Mr. Young, my, must have been easy to preach in those days. He said, preach? You felt like crawling in a hole, brother. You see how little. I had not been through such a thing.

I didn't understand it. That's just how little people who haven't been through revival, how little they understand what revival is. I said, must have been easy to preach in those days. Lots of the Spirit, easy to preach.

He says, no, you don't feel, nobody wanted to preach. He said, meetings were held and there hardly was any preaching at all. The awareness of God. People getting right with God. Confessing their sins and sharing their life and joy.

That was revival. That's what he said, the Wales revival. Now, revival, strictly speaking, here's what a man of God says. Joseph Kemp of New Zealand was a great man of God. He said this, revival, strictly speaking, means the reanimating of that which is already living, but is in a state of declension.

It has to do principally with the Church as a whole and Christians as individuals. See this? Evangelism, in our usage of the word, as well as in its derivative sense, refers primarily, evangelism refers primarily to the proclamation of the gospel to the unsaved.

To make evangelism a synonym of revivalism is untrue to the teaching of the New Testament. The Church is responsible for evangelism, for revival. In the last analysis, we are cast upon the sovereign grace and mercy of God.

Revival is of God. Now, that doesn't mean there are not conditions for revival. There are plenty of them. We have to meet them. But after all, revival is from God, the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.

Amen. In Hezekiah's day, they rejoiced in all the people that God had prepared the people, for the thing was done suddenly. Sovereignty of God is the divine side of revival. The human conditions, which must be met in prayer and confession, repentance and faith and so on, that's the human side of revival.

But both sides are true. If you're going to just sit down and wait for God to send a kind of a bombshell from heaven, no, you're not meeting the conditions. You'll find that in revivals in the Book of Acts, nearly every one of those many revivals in the Book of Acts and in the Old Testament, revival is invariably accompanied by a session of waiting, confessing, getting right with God, on the human side.

Prayer, much prayer. Now, the need for revival. Wherefore should they say among the people, where is their God? The need for revival. The meaning of revival we've seen a little bit of. Now, the need. It's easy to exaggerate, but it can perhaps be truly said that as far as Christendom is concerned, we are in desperate need.

Revival as the Answer to Moral and Spiritual Decline

The one answer to the situation is revival. Either it is revival in our hearts, somebody says, you will have revival in your hearts or revolution in your streets. We're getting the revolution in our streets because there's very little revival.

It's very scattered, just a little bit here and there. The thing I noticed, pardon me, the thing I noticed is that if there's a little bit of revival in Ashbury or Prince George or Abbotsford or Prairie or someplace like that, there's just a little bit.

Well, praise God, we got a big revival in the country. Oh, brother, you're getting satisfied too easily, too quickly. Next to nothing as compared to real awakenings. It's supposed that Charles Finney single-handed won a half a million souls to the Lord in about 12 months' time.

What do you think of that for revival? A hundred thousand Christians were added to the churches in a very few weeks. That's a real moving, isn't it? And what's going on in Indonesia now? Oh, it's hard to sift it out just to get to the facts.

But it looks, and a Mr. Cook who writes on revival in Indonesia, quite a book, he says that there's not a doubt, but he says this is the greatest thing since the days of Pentecost where people, where an odd case has actually risen from the dead and marvels and wonders are taking place.

And people being swept into the kingdom. Even a lot of Mohammedans who are the unconvertibles, supposedly. Well, it's revival in our hearts or revolution in our streets. Where there's no vision, listen to this, I want to write this up for the Overcomer one of these days, just a little World Today item.

Where there's no vision, the people perish or they throw off all moral restraint. Is that a picture of the modern day? Are people throwing off all moral restraint? What's the matter? Among God's people there's no vision.

No moral restraint anymore then. The salt is losing its flavor. The earth is rotting with a vengeance. Just yesterday I had an interview. The CBC gave me the once over. I don't know how much they're going to put on the air, but I don't care.

But they asked me, what about this moral slump and what do you mean by that and so on? What do you think it's going to be? Will it get better or worse and so on? Well, I said, Jesus likened the Church to salt.

And if the salt loses its flavor, the earth's going to rot. And I said, we haven't enough salt in the country to stay the corruption. The salt has lost its flavor. And I said, there's nothing, there's no hope for us but further moral corruption and slump.

Human nature being what it is, there's nothing for us but that. And so I just told them frankly, that's exactly what it's going to be. But if you get enough born-again people to make salt, the salt will have a keeping effect, a saving, conserving, non-corrupting effect.

It'll keep from corruption if the salt has not lost its flavor. Then I used the illustration from Rochester, New York, where Charles Finney held a series of meetings in Rochester many years ago, way back over a century ago now.

Many of the business people in that place were converted, leading men. Finney was a lawyer and a fearless man as there ever was. And he so preached that many believed. And many years after that, the attorney, the county attorney, who had the prosecution of crime in that area, came to Mr. Finney and he said, Do you know the effects of that revival years ago?

Rochester has grown to three times its size as a city. But there is not now one-third as much crime in Rochester as there was before the revival, which meant 900 percent change. Well, that's the effect of salt.

It stays the corruption. And with the increasing corruption that we've got today in crime, the only one answer, it's God's people with enough savor, sweet savor of the salt, to stay the corruption. But if not, we're in for it.

We're in for it. Listen, you want another instance of it? In the days of the Westleys in Britain, the Westleys in Whitfield when they came on the scene in Britain, here's a characterizing little sentence.

Death in the churches, rottenness in public morals, infidelity coming in like a flood. That was in the days of the Westleys. Death in the churches, rottenness in public morals, infidelity everywhere. In fact, it's something like it is in Philadelphia.

People are having to move out of the city of Philadelphia, a lot of them, get out of the place because crime is so rampant in the city of Philadelphia. I was there just a block away. I was at the OMF for dinner, the Overseas Missionary Fellowship for dinner.

And then right around the corner, I stayed with the Gordon Duns just a block away. And they said, here's the key to the house now so you can go and come. But whatever you do, be sure the door is well locked because robbers walk right into the daytime here now.

And it's right in the area, nice, decent-looking area, but you can just expect maybe to get waylaid in the middle of the day or the house invaded, they just walk in. And haven't you noticed now you hear about eight and nine, ten-year-old little gangs that are robbing houses, robbing houses, robbing houses, nine and ten-year-olds.

What the—wow! One of them daddies and mothers. Oh, oh, oh. My, you ache, and that kind of thing is going to increase. The human heart, I said to CBC yesterday, the human heart being what it is, it's going to get worse.

Nothing to stop it, nothing to stop it. You see, the wicked notion today is that human nature is unfortunate, physically a little something wrong, nervously needing psychiatric treatment. And so the psychologists and the physiologists and all the rest of the philosophers all gang up that this dear boy that did this, he meant well, even though he killed his mother-in-law with a club.

He's just unfortunate, he's not a criminal. Well, what in the world are we coming to? All based on our stupid ignorance of the depravity of the human heart. Do you get it? I could make a prescription that would settle a lot of this crime business in a hurry if they'd listen, but they won't.

I don't expect them to. The world couldn't take it. The world wouldn't take it. Give them 40 lashes, save one, and they wouldn't have a lot of penitentiaries to build and support and a lot of psychiatrists to pay and the taxes to know in.

Give them 40 lashes, they'll quit it. They'll quit it so fast, it'll surprise them as well as others. That's the last thing in the world a criminal wants is 40 lashes. They tell me that they often faint and drop as good as dead before they get 10.

It's so terrible. Oh, the way it cuts them up. But that is what crime deserves, and they ought to get it. If they won't learn by grace, let them learn by law. That's God's remedy. But where there's no vision, God's people have lost their vision, then there is no moral restraint.

That's Proverbs 29 .18, if you wish it. Proverbs 29 .18. Now, the cry of Isaiah sets forth this desperate need in the midst of our appalling moral darkness and spiritual deterioration. Isaiah 64, 1 to 3.

You can write that down if you like. Great, it's a great revival scripture. Oh, that thou wouldst rend the heavens, that thou wouldst come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence, as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence.

When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence. The last thing in the world that can happen to a mountain is to flow down. And yet that's the kind of thing, when God moves, say unto this mountain, be thou removed.

Oh, that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down. Let the mountains flow down. Consider the feeling today, beloved. Consider the feeling everywhere of uncertainty and instability today. The future holding no sure promise of peace or safety, much less of prosperity.

We're just being torn asunder seven ways. And suspicion, look at the suspicion now that's being gendered between Canada and the United States. And here's Britain sending back 105 spies to Russia, and Canada flirting with Russia and entertaining her rulers, and flirting with Red China.