Are You Backsliding? (Part 1) — Michael L. Brown

Are You Backsliding? (Part 1)

Lord, look at these, your people, your servants that are here. They've come, Lord, some for many hours. Some have had to invest precious funds just to get here. Some have had to break away radically from their schedule to get here.

Some, Lord, are ready to quit unless you visit them. Living God, I pray that You would come in power and speak to us today. That we would have an encounter with You through Your Word, and that we would be changed for Your glory.

Living God, we look to You and pray that You would not disappoint, but that You would take us deeper. In Jesus' name, amen. I want you to turn with me to 2 Chronicles, chapter 34. I'm going to back my way into our subject.

Revival Begins With a Sick and Sleeping Church

In a moment, we're going to take a look at what we really mean when we speak of revival, and give you a glimpse of what God has done in different parts of the world, in different generations. And then we want to talk about our own lives, see where we are at, see where God wants to take us.

I want to say right up front that there is no condemnation in this room. No one is here to criticize, or to put down, or to crush. If God, by His Spirit, speaks directly to you, maybe this is what you've been praying for and longing for.

Maybe today, and this week, you're going to receive the answers that your heart's been crying out for. Maybe the breakthrough that you so desperately need, or that you don't know that you desperately need, maybe that breakthrough is knocking at the door today.

So don't miss a golden opportunity. I don't mean my teaching, I don't mean these meetings, I mean if God begins to deal deeply with you. Do not harden your heart, but embrace it. And if you humble yourself in His sight, He will give you grace.

Before we read from 2 Chronicles 34, let me say that we need revival because the church is sick. The world doesn't need revival, the world needs to be impacted by revival. But revival comes to a sickly, sleeping church.

That's us. Not the guys down the block, that's us. And the reason that the church is sickly and sleeping is because we as leaders are sickly and sleeping. Now that may sound extreme at the outset, it won't sound extreme when we're done.

But the message of revival is first and foremost to the church, and first and foremost within the church, it's to the leadership, because it's because of leadership that we'll either move into revival or move out of revival.

2 Chronicles 34 tells us, verse 1, Josiah was eight years old when he became king and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.

In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David. So at the age of sixteen, eight years into his reign, he begins to seek God. And he does it, apparently, for the next four years because it says in the twelfth year of his reign, in his twelfth year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of high places, his asherah poles, carved idols, and cast images.

So in the twelfth year of Josiah's reign, he begins to bring a reformation movement to Judah and Jerusalem. He begins to bring them to a place of repentance. He begins to purge the temple in the twelfth year of his reign.

Josiah, Jeremiah, and the Prophetic Challenge to Go Deeper

Now go over to Jeremiah chapter 1. Jeremiah chapter 1. The Josiah reformation revival was the last great move in the history of Judah, the last great move before the temple was destroyed. Jeremiah 1 .1, the words of Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, one of the priests at Anatoth in the territory of Benjamin, the word of the Lord came to him when?

In the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah, son of Ammon, king of Judah. One year into Josiah's reformation, one year into this beginning revival movement, God raises up Jeremiah. I believe it's important for us in the church today, it's been evident that there's been the beginning of a stirring, a renewing, a rising hunger in the midst of the people of God.

Prayer movements, citywide prayer movements, citywide repentance movements, citywide pastors' gatherings, people crying out to God for God to come. Since the late eighties, this awareness of the need for revival has been growing.

Then into the early mid-nineties, the beginning of refreshing moves breaking out in different ways, and now maybe the very first signs of a true awakening that could sweep America. But what we need in the midst of this is the prophetic voice challenging us to go deeper.

Not just saying, this is wonderful, and embracing everything and sitting back and stagnating again. Not just standing back and criticizing, but saying, God's moving the Holy Spirit's at work, but where do we go from here?

Because I've had the privilege of speaking in different nations, I've seen many churches heavily impacted in the current renewal movement in different nations. England has had about 4 ,000 churches, possibly more, impacted across the board from Anglican to Pentecostal to Baptist, across the board.

Much more universally than we've seen in America. Heavily impacted by a genuine renewal, and yet many of the churches are stagnating because they say, where do we go from here? I've seen that in other nations.

And I believe that it's critical that we, here and now, in the early stages of what God is doing, pray, Lord, what are you saying? What's your prophetic word? Give us the spirit and heart of Jeremiah's in our days so that we can be challenged.

See, Jeremiah spoke to the people early in the years of Josiah. And said, you have not returned to me with all your heart, but rather in pretense. See, the prophet comes along and makes you uncomfortable.

Just when you want someone to put their arm around you and tell you everything's well, they tell you, I have this against you, says the Lord. Are we willing to allow the Lord to make us uncomfortable?

Discerning Genuine Revival From Superficial Religious Excitement

Now, I'm jealous for the real thing. Desperately jealous for the real thing. And it always disturbs me when we cheapen what God is doing. We prayed for a woman in a wheelchair last night, and it seemed the power of God hit her, and she began to shake and basically was slain in the spirit in her wheelchair.

Well, that's nice, but I want to see you get out of the wheelchair. I'm not going to say it was revival because she shook and fell in the wheelchair. Do you understand? When we say, oh, revival's come, revival's broken, revival because the Sunday school attendance doubled.

Or because the old deacon wept for the first time in 20 years. Or because the offerings were up, or because three people got saved. Thank God for all of it. Thank God for everything He does. Like one man with a powerful healing ministry said, if Jesus heals a wart by His power and it disappears, rejoice.

I mean, God did it. I don't mean to downplay it. I don't mean to say, oh, that's nothing. But let's not call every little trickle a mighty flood. See, there's the critical, never satisfied spirit. When a trickle comes, it says, that's not a river.

And then the river comes and it says, that's not a flood. And then the flood comes and it says, floods are dangerous. And you've got some people that sit there every week. Whatever happens, they're going to have a problem.

But the other extreme is it starts to trickle a little bit. We say, this is the great outpouring, the deluge, the revival we've been waiting for. You know, we just get a little squirt and we say, this is the mighty river.

And God's saying, don't you think I have more than that plan? Don't you think I'm bigger than that? So when we talk about revival, we're talking about the only hope of America, friends. The only hope of America.

Historical Revivals and the Moral Transformation of Nations

The reason that America is in the condition that it's in today is because we've had no revival since the beginning of the century. Azusa Street was a great Pentecostal outpouring at the turn of the century.

But a few years before that, end of 1904 into 1905, there was a revival that impacted America as a whole. I've shared some of these incidents. I probably shared some of them the last time I taught here.

But a lot of people don't hear about the 1904 revival in America. Began in December of 1904, about the same time revival was breaking in Wales, November of 1904. And in those six months in Wales, after that, 100 ,000 Welshmen converted within six months.

And in case you didn't hear the other statistic, about two-thirds of them within 10 years died on the battlefields of World War I. Mercy of God extended the last moment. But revival impacted America, 1904 and 1905.

One of the most startling statistics was that in Atlantic City, I mean, you look at Atlantic City today, known for its legalization of gambling in recent years and so on. You look at Atlantic City in New Jersey, in the 1904 -1905 move of God, they could not find more than 50 people unconverted in the city of Atlantic City, numbering 60 ,000.

60 ,000 population, they couldn't find more than 50 unconverted. There were parts you could go into New England and couldn't find unconverted people. God moved powerfully. When the prayer revival swept America in 1857, 1858, it changed the moral climate of the nation.

30 million people in America, 2 million got right with God in that period of time. You had businesses across New York and across major cities that would all shut down. Government buildings, things would just shut down so everyone could attend the noonday prayer meetings.

This is the type of thing that happens in revival. More than what we've seen, more than what we've known, more than what we've experienced. James Edwin Orr, who was the greatest revival historian of this last generation, God, the evangelical man.

He talks about how after the War of Independence in the end of the 1700s, America took a deep moral decline. There was terrible drunkenness. Women were afraid to walk the streets at night. There was no church.

Surveys were done of the major campuses, schools like Yale and Harvard. Those began as Christian schools, friends. You go to Yale today, and one of the most powerful things you're confronted with is a militant homosexual movement there.

You could go to Harvard Divinity School and find one of the leading professors there in the School of Divinity, a theological, ethical, moral professor. That's what he's known for, one of the top preachers in America.

You can go to Harvard today and find out that this man, a couple of years ago, publicly said, yes, it's true what you've heard about me. I am a practicing homosexual. These schools didn't start like that, friends.

They started to train people for ministry. Even people just going for a secular degree at Harvard in the late 1600s, early 1700s, those standards were far higher than any Christian school you'll find on a large level today in America.

But things were so bad in the late 1700s that Orr records that they did surveys of the major schools, and at various schools, they could not find a single professing Christian on campus in America in the late 1700s.

Every one in one school, all of the men signed to be members of the profanity, the foul speech club, that they would vow to use foul language. Another had only five registered Christians, but when they would meet, they would keep their meetings in code because they didn't want to be found out.

And America, what changed it? Revival hit. What tamed the Wild West? You hear about the Cain Ridge revivals, these various Kentucky revivals, early 1800s? Revival hit and tamed the Wild West and swept and impacted America, and the moral climate of our nation changed.

Revival as the Only Hope for America

What I'm looking for, what I'm praying for, what I'm believing for, along with many of you, is for God to shake our nation in such a way where you don't have homosexuals in leading positions, when you don't have abortion clinics murdering our unborn, when you don't have a sleeping church that's full of the world, and pastors and sexual sinners, when we're pure and holy, when America's impacted for the glory of God.

Yes, do what you can politically, do what you can socially, do what you can, join the school board, do whatever you can on that level, don't abandon the society, but the only way it's going to change is revival.

It's when the unconverted get converted. How's that going to happen? When the church gets on fire. We're scratching the surface, friends. That's not bad news, that's good news. I told John and Steve a couple of weeks ago, I said, listen man, God's calling me into this thing in the early stages.

I'm not coming as a latecomer, this is just the very beginning. We're at the very beginning here in Brownsville, at the very beginning, early stages of something you could call revival. See, we got into this terminology in America where you hold revivals.

Oh, we're holding a three-day revival. Oh, praise God, we're sponsoring a four-day hurricane in our city. And I use that illustration to say, well, you don't hold a revival. You say, well, in our church we had revival and we shut it down.

Oh, you can shut down revival, that you can do. But you can't sponsor or having a guest speaker, guest musician, so you can't have a revival. You know, folks from other countries look and they, you know, that's just a curiosity to them of Americans, you know, that you hold three-day revivals and that you, you know, we're having our anniversary revival.

What that generally means is some hyped-up professional speaker who's going to spend most of his time taking up an offering, some emotional stories to get you all soulishly moved, some special music, and you go home unchanged.

That's American revival. We're not talking about God visiting a place. See, when this thing spreads, the way it's got to be is what you see happening at the altars here is going to be happening on the streets.

You're going to see people walking in to play bingo and suddenly falling on their faces and crying out, God have mercy. These are typical in times of revival. I'll give you a couple of examples from the Hebrides revival from 1949 to 1952.

How many of you know where the Hebrides are? Just a few. Small islands off Scotland. How many of you have read about the Hebrides revival? Just a few. How many of you know of the ministry of Duncan Campbell?

Just a few. He was a strict Presbyterian, non-Pentecostal. When he was asked at one stage of his ministry, had he ever spoken in tongues, he said, no. He said, but I was at a meeting once and someone said it was tongues, but I didn't understand it.

I mean, that's as much as he knew about tongues at that stage of his ministry. He was a mightily used man of God. Now, I say these things about him not being Pentecostal, so when you hear some of these stories, you realize this is God at work, man.

You can't just say this was some emotional thing or this guy was just out there. This was just, this doesn't happen to these kind of people. He gets a call. These two sisters in their 80s, one of them completely blind, the other doubled over with arthritis.

They had been praying for revival in the parish of Barbas. That's where they lived in the Hebrides, Lewis Island. They'd been praying for God to send revival. They were convinced that God had given a covenant promise through the prophet Isaiah in the 44th chapter of his book.

He ought to, etzok mayim al-sameh, as I pour out water on the dry land. V 'nozlim al-yabasha. That's not tongues, that's Hebrew, by the way. And streams on the dry ground. Water on the thirsty ground, streams on the dry ground.

Etzok ruhi al-lecha, I'll pour out my spirit upon you. Uvir kati al-tzeh, al-tzehecha, my blessing on your descendants. They took that as a personal covenant promise. And they began to say, you promised us rain.

And I believe the principle is that God promised rain for the thirsty. God promises outpouring for the hungry. On that level, you can make it your own promise. They were praying for revival. There had been some young men praying regularly for months, for months, for revival to come.

How long do you pray for revival? You pray for revival until. That's the only alternative. Someone was joking with me, he said, Mike, we prayed for an hour and there's no revival. We called our church to fast one day this month and there's no revival.

Well, you call your church to fast one day a week and to pray one night a week and to pray daily for revival until. And at some point, whether it's one year, 10 years, or 50 years, God will visit you if you're hungry and if you obey what he's saying to do.

The Hebrides Revival and the Power of Persistent Prayer

So these young men had been praying, gathering regularly, working regular jobs, and praying at night until the early hours of the morning, several nights a week, and they had been doing it for months.

And no breakthrough. These old women praying for revival, no breakthrough. Others praying for revival, no breakthrough. One night, one of the deacons, one of the young men, reads from Psalm 24 that those that will ascend into God's hill and see him are those with clean hands and a pure heart.

And he says, what's the use of all of our praying? It's just humbug, he said, if my hands are not clean, if my heart is not pure. And he said, I must ask myself, am I clean and pure before God? And repentance broke that night, and the Spirit fell, and those men ended up falling into a trance and laying there into the early hours of the morning.

Duncan Campbell says that's when the revival broke. Well, he gets a message. These sisters were convinced that God wanted to use him. He gets a message. Would you please come and minister for us, such and such a date?

And he sends back a note, no, I'm sorry, my schedule is full at that date, but I'll put you on the calendar for next week. I'll put you on the calendar for next year. So these old sisters, when you don't want to cross praying women, especially ones that know the secret place, that are shut in with God.

You know, some of my dear Korean friends, when they tell me, listen, they want you to come a certain date and the schedule doesn't permit it, and they said, brother, we are praying. It's like, change the calendar, it's gonna happen.

You can't resist the flood tide of Korean praying if you've ever been there and seen it, man. So this old lady, stone cold blind, gets the reply, he can't come, and she says, that is what man says. God says he's coming.

Well, this tourist agency had some travel group, ended up having a special conference and booked every hotel and every room in the area where Campbell was supposed to be speaking, and suddenly the meetings are canceled, and he has an opening in his schedule.

So he shows up. And right from the outset, now this was not, this was Scottish Highlanders. These were people that are typical American service, even a conservative American service would strike them as totally hyped and worked up.

It was not their style at all, very conservative people. Campbell comes in and begins to minister, and almost immediately, the spirit falls. And God begins to move that night at midnight. Listen, there were young people at a dance hall.

These young people had no interest in God. They had had it with traditional religion. They were at the dance hall at midnight when suddenly conviction fell in the dance hall. Nobody went over and told them there was a church meeting going on.

God went over. Conviction fell in the dance hall, and the dance hall empties out, and the kids come into the church at midnight. The service continues till four in the morning. At four in the morning, Campbell receives a message, Mr. Campbell, there's a gathering of people at the police station.

Unsafe people have gotten out of their beds in the middle of the night, and want to find out how to get right with God because they're under conviction. We have very little understanding of conviction.

Conviction, Conversion, and the Reality of Salvation

When we see people running up to the altar weeping, that's more the normal pattern. That's what we should expect when someone realizes they're undone. Not our typical, do Jesus a favor, come up here and pray a quick prayer and receive the benefits package.

Not our contemporary version of the Gospel. That's unknown historically. It's unknown in most of the world. Poor Jesus, he's knocking. He's knocking at the door of your heart. Won't you come and give him a chance?

And someone just comes, kind of strolling up. They don't have a clue what's going on. The main question they're wondering is, how long is this thing gonna take before I get out of here? The only thing they're uncomfortable with is standing up there.

And you tell them, okay, pray this prayer. Father God, have mercy on me, have mercy on me. I've sinned. What, I've sinned? I've sinned, yeah, I've sinned, I've sinned. I mean, that's the level of conviction.

They walk out, we say, praise God, you're saved. And then we wonder why we don't see him again. Takes six months of follow-up to get him back in church. Why? Because I haven't been saved yet. We're following up on dead sinners.

If we get them converted, they'll be all right. There was a guy last night, one of the ones I noticed maybe in his mid-twenties, crying his eyes out at the altar. Just broken up. At the end, after he prayed, I looked at him and I smiled at him.

And he tried to smile and started weeping again. I mean, he just saw the reality of it. And afterwards, he was all the way in the back. I made my way out to like the foyer area, praying for people. And he was there.

He said, you gotta pray for me and my wife, my whole family, we need prayer. I said, hey, what were you doing up at the altar tonight? He said, man, I got saved tonight. He's just crying again. You know, and we prayed for him.

The power of God laid him out. And it's just, hey, that's a good way to start. And the scenes here, it's gonna get heavier. It's gonna get heavier. People at four in the morning, what do we do? And there's Campbell.

He says, I'll never forget the sight. You know, they're under moon, starlit sky, all these people wanting to find out how to get right with God. And for six weeks, listen, six weeks they went like that, starting at seven in the evening.

And then they'd go to one church, back to another church, back to another, and ended four in the morning. And here's the awesome statistic. In those first six weeks, 75 of those converted got saved before they got into the church building.

God visited. God visited. He goes over to another area. And this one is hard. The people are bitter against the gospel. They come in, they have their opening meeting, nothing happens. Nothing happens.

One of the deacons says to Campbell, he says, don't fear. He said, I've heard the chariot wheel. Now, you get a lot of flakes. They've heard and seen everything. You know, some of you have the visiting flake, you know, shows up in your church for six months before they move on with all these amazing prophecies and visions and revelations.

See, the good thing about a lot of charismatic Pentecostal churches is that they often have more life than some other churches. They also draw more flakes, it seems. So, I mean, yeah, I've seen the chariot, well, God, show me the awesome things that will happen in your ministry.

We believe a lot of it, and 20 years goes by, and it's all the same, but we're living in this delusion that these awesome things are happening. I mean, some of us are in a spiritual dream world. We think that we are the most anointed people on the planet, and when we stand behind the pulpit, demons run for miles, but nobody's lives are being changed.

And the reason that you still have 20 people is because you have the elite troops of God's holy remnant, and you are preaching such a high standard that no one will run with you, and that's why they're in the back door, in the front door, and out the back door.

Maybe there's another problem. I don't want to get too personal, though. But hey, there's a real spiritual realm when someone says, the Lord showed me. That's just such a, man, it happens. And a dimension in the spirit when God speaks and something breaks and a neighborhood's affected.

And what you say in your secret prayer closet is heard in heaven by God and affects nations. I said, Mr. Campbell, don't fear. I've heard the rumbling of the chariot wheels. They suggest, why don't we go to Brother so-and-so's house and pray?

So they go to this house, and these men are seeking God. Past the night of the meeting, I mean, how many times, if you don't have a breakthrough, do you go back and have a prayer meeting? I've seen it with these dear Indian brothers we work with in India.

I said to our team, okay, we didn't break through. Can we all fast today? I knew people on the team were sick. We had about 10 people, jet-lagged and tired, different things, and still catching up with us.

And I said, hey, do you think we can just fast tomorrow? We just need to break through it. Okay, we'll do it, good. I go to the Indian brothers. I said, look, don't prepare any food for us in the daytime.

We feel we gotta fast till we break through. So we're gonna fast tomorrow. And he says, good idea. And he turns to his whole team. He says, no food till we break through. Just makes the announcement, they're all not okay.

That's Christianity, they're serious. You know, they're not ruled by their stomachs. They're ruled by the things of God. So okay, fine, no food till we break through. I mean, how many times after a meeting, when you don't break through, do you go and have a prayer meeting?

Prayer, Fasting, and Spiritual Breakthrough

We're not used to that. So they go and they go have a prayer meeting. And at midnight, Campbell says to the blacksmith, he feels led, says to the blacksmith, brother, would you lead us in prayer? And the blacksmith prays for a half hour, which is a long time at a prayer meeting with other people.

As Campbell says, as others have said, the first thing to go in revival is the clock. Time doesn't really have that much meaning. He prays till 1230. And at 1230, he gets seized with a holy boldness. And he said, God, he said, don't you know that your honor is at stake?

You have given us promises and you're not keeping them. You promised to pour out water on the thirsty land and you're not doing it. And then he paused and he said, I challenge you to keep your covenant commitments.

And just then the granite house shook like a leaf. I put down a note in one book. I wonder if some of our modern spirit stiflers would have been there to rebuke the house for being too easily shaken, too easily moved.

I call them our modern SWAT teams, spiritual watchdogs and self-appointed truth sentries. I may have put in an extra thing that doesn't fit SWAT, but it fit when I came up with it initially. Oh, we got people that'll have a problem with every little spiritual move, especially if it doesn't start with them.

Some of us are like that. Come on, let's be honest. The house shakes. Campbell immediately thinks of Acts 431 when they prayed the place was shaken. People say, why do people shake? Well, if a house could shake, how much more person when the spirit falls?

Some people thought it was an earthquake. Campbell knew what it was. Those men were on their faces. They were on their faces. God had come. Past two in the morning, they got up to go home. Now, here's the wild thing.

They had a small turnout at the church meeting that night, and people in the area were bitter towards the gospel. Listen, they go out of the house past two in the morning, and in every home, the lights are on, and people have gotten out of bed to seek God.

People are getting out of their doors, carrying chairs on their backs, saying, is there room in the church for me? And they're seeing men laying on the ground, crying out for mercy. It was not an uncommon scene in the Welsh revival as people would go into a certain area.

There's a man. He's been knocked off his horse. He's laying there on the ground, waiting for someone to lead him to God and to pray with him. You know it's real when you hear the reports about the spirit falling in school rooms.

One of the most famous reports from the 1859 revival in Ireland. As God was moving, there's awesome scenes from that revival. Some of the most extraordinary stuff I've ever read. Outpourings taking place there.

There's one boy just not feeling well. He's not at rest with his own soul. Someone's walking him to go back home. Maybe he's sick. As this older boy is walking the younger boy home, he talks to him about Jesus and leads him to the Lord.

And the younger boy now turns around and goes back to the school. They've got the schoolroom with the boys downstairs and the girls upstairs. Coleraine, Ireland, 1859. And the boy now begins to share what happened in his life and the joy he has because he found Jesus.

Conviction falls on the other boys and they fall on their knees and begin to weep and wail and get right with God. Now, nobody comes to announce upstairs to the girls' class what's happening, but the same thing happens there.

And next thing, the weeping and the wailing hits there. Parents hear this cry. Word begins to get out. They wonder what's going on. They begin to arrive. As they get to the threshold of the door, the same thing falls on them.

The conviction. They begin to weep and cry out. And you've got these scenes happening across the country. That's a picture of revival. One last Hebrides story. And I often tell these because so few people know about them, but they're relatively recent.

Duncan Campbell's Obedience and the Revival on Berneray

And they didn't happen in the jungles of Africa. Campbell's preaching at a convention, the Bangor Convention, somewhere in the UK. And the Lord speaks to him, go to Berneray. Berneray was a small island in the Hebrides he had never been to.

Go to Berneray. The Lord, I can't go to Berneray. I'm scheduled to be speaking at the convention here. I'm the final speaker. Go to Berneray. Three times. So he tells the convention and he says, the Lord's impressed me.

I've got to go to Berneray. He said, you can't. I've got you down as the final speaker at the convention there. He says, he shares with the other leaders. They're convinced it's God. They send him off.

The next day, he gets a plane, flies into Glasgow in Scotland, then gets off the plane in Scotland and flies over to Stornoway in the Hebrides, then drives across the island of Stornoway. He's got his luggage.

He doesn't know anybody there. He's just going in obedience to God. At the end of driving across Stornoway, then he gets in a little ferry. And he's brought over by ferry over to the island. Doesn't know anybody.

Doesn't know why he's there. God's just said, go. He's exhausted at this point. He sees a young man working in the field. He says, excuse me, are there any churches here? He says, no, sir. They're closed.

He said, are there any elders? He said, yes. One of them lives right up that hill there. And he said, could you tell him that Campbell is here? And if he says, which Campbell? Tell him the Campbell from Lewis Island, thinking maybe he had heard about.

So the young man goes up and comes back. He says, yes, that's Elder Hector McKinnon. He says, you are expected. He says, you will be staying at his brother's house. And the first meeting is at 9 o 'clock tonight.

What had happened was that this man, Hector McKinnon, who was a postmaster, was deeply burdened for the state of the church on his island because the churches were closed and young people weren't interested in God.

And he took a day off from work. He took a day off from work. Remember when ministry wasn't work? Remember when you didn't talk in terms of I'm going to work? Some of you need to take some time off from work and meet with God.

And he took a day off. He took a day off from his secular job and sought the Lord. And he became convinced that God wanted to send Duncan Campbell. So he was praying. His wife three times went into the barn to check on him as he was praying to see what was going on.

And three times she heard him say, God, I don't know where he is, but you know where he is, so send him. And that day was the day that God spoke to Campbell. Go to Burnery. And he became convinced that Campbell was coming and a few days and publicly announced we're having a nine o 'clock meeting with Duncan Campbell.

That's what you call Holy Ghost communication. You know, Ravenhill always used to say you don't have to advertise a fire. Wesley was asked, how do you draw the crowds? He said, I set myself on fire and the people come to watch me burn.

All of our advertising and hyping it up and taking out $40 ,000 ads in big magazines to announce our revival convention is because we don't have revival. You know, if you came up with a cancer pill that cost $1 ,000 for one pill, but that pill would totally and forever cure cancer, do you think you'd have to mount a big advertising campaign to sell it?