The Canadian Revival - Part 5 — Bill McLeod

Revival Makes It Easier for Sinners to Be Saved

Pastor come down and helped me gather in the harvest and 200 sinners got saved with no special meanings at all. But when the Christians were right, God had no trouble saving sinners. And most of these sinners knew people that had been revived and they saw the change in these Christians that they'd known for years and they saw this excitement, this godly excitement and so they came under conviction.

And we had numbers of cases like that where when the church got right, God had no trouble saving sinners. In one church where this happened, the pastor said, you know, in a year we might see 20 people saved or less than that.

Historical Accounts of American Revival

Since revival came, we have seen from one in 20 people saved every week of the year. But the church was right. So revival is needed so churches can be right with God. I came across a book. The title of the book was A History of American Revivals of Religion.

The author was Reverend Calvin Colton. It was published in 1832. There were great revivals in the United States in the early part of the 1800s. And he was getting inquiries from England so he wrote this book.

As a matter of fact, he went to England for some meetings and realized he could never cover all the churches so he wrote a book and then sent copies to England. And some things he said were this. Revival never came to a church that was not expecting revival and believing God for revival.

Expecting and Praying for Revival

It never failed to come to churches that believed God it would come. So he said fasting, praying, preaching, believing God for revival and revival would come. He said we were never happy or satisfied.

We were happy but not satisfied with the twos and threes finding Christ. We kept praying for God the Holy Ghost to come. And when He came, He took the work out of our hands and He made the whole community aware of God.

And then people were saved by the hundreds. I understand this old book is being reprinted. I don't know under the same title or not but I know it has been reprinted somewhere in the United States. But it's a very challenging, interesting book, the way that God was working.

How Christians Learned to Work Toward Revival

He worked in the beginning of those revival meetings in an independent way. He just, churches that were not expecting revival would suddenly experience revival. This was happening for a period of time until Christians found out what revival meant and how to work towards revival.

And then that type of revival phased out. And the revivals that followed were every bit as powerful as the other revivals had been. But Christians had learned how to do it. Stoddard, some of you will know who he was, related to Jonathan Edwards, he experienced in 35 years, he experienced five revivals in his church.

But other churches were not experiencing revival. So a bunch of pastors had a meeting with Stoddard to ask him the secret of revival. And he said, God is not favoring us because we're any better than you.

But we expect revival. We pray for it. We fast for it. We believe God for it. You don't do any of those things. You're waiting for something to happen. We're waiting for something to happen too but we're believing God for it.

We're preaching towards it. And that was the difference. And I think there is a very important lesson for us to learn here. We didn't know when revival came in Saskatoon, what God was doing. We didn't really know much about revival.

I'd read books about it. I had an idea. But I quickly learned stay out of the way. Watch what God is doing. Ralph and Lucita was so sensitive to God. They were a marvelous example to all of us. Not only being good preachers but good organizers.

Ralph and Lucita’s Leadership in the Saskatoon Revival

Very sensitive to what God was doing. And so sensitive, I remember one Sunday morning, God waking me early in the morning and he gave me two revival messages. And later that day Ralph told me, he said, now you're preaching at both services tonight.

I said, really? What do you mean? Because evangelists never ask the pastor to preach in meetings they're conducting. But God had given me those two messages so that night I preached twice. And then sometimes I asked Walter Bolt, who pastored the Large Alliance Church in Saskatoon, asked him to preach and he did.

And of course what Ralph and Lucita were doing, they were trying to train us in this kind of thing so we could carry on because they knew they weren't going to be there forever, maybe seven weeks as it turned out.

Revival Restores Marriages and Transforms Troubled Lives

So a lot of broken marriages were restored. There were people that had been divorced that were remarried. This happened in numbers of cases and meetings in Saskatoon and other places as well. And I remember one case so well.

This gal, she'd been through, I think she said four doctors and three psychiatrists or maybe four psychiatrists and three doctors. I don't remember, but there were seven altogether. And they'd given up on her.

She had emotional problems that couldn't help her. And finally the one doctor said, we're going to try hypnotism and if that doesn't help, there's nothing else on the shelves. We don't know what to do.

Well before she took that last, she met God in revival. And she went to see the doctor. And so he talked about a few things then. He said, well now we'll hypnotism. No, she said, I don't need that. We said, what do you mean you don't need it?

She said, I've been revived. What do you mean you've been revived? Explain this to me. That's what she told him. And after listening to her for a while he simply said, something has happened. I don't understand it.

This is wonderful. And one night an unconverted psychiatrist was in one of those meetings and he heard the testimonies of different people and this woman gave her testimony that night. And afterwards this psychiatrist said, I wish her story could be written and published in a book in every language in the world.

He said, I've never heard anything like that. And so God was just touching people who maybe didn't come forward in the meetings. They were just sitting there. Maybe not even in the meetings, but they talked with Christians or something.

They'd be revived just in their homes or driving a car. We had cases where people left the meeting, got in the car, drove a half a block and found they couldn't coordinate to drive the car safely so they came back in the meeting and asked for prayer and met with God and then they were able to drive their car home.

We had things like that. I had one custodian in a certain building when he told me, I can't coordinate to sweep the floor. You guys are going to have to pray for me. And so we prayed for him. He couldn't even coordinate to sweep the floor.

Conviction of Sin Leads to Confession and Restitution

And people were confessing to stealing, to lying, to being unfaithful. I got a phone call during those days of revival in Saskatoon and one of my men was on the phone. He worked in the university and he was weeping and he said, I must see you.

So he came running into my office 15 minutes later. He ran in, fell on his knees at my desk and he was just weeping and the water was running from his eyes across the desk and I knelt beside him. I thought maybe something terrible has happened to him, you know, his wife, his kids or something.

And finally he told me what happened. He'd been sitting at his office desk and here's what he said. The Spirit of God tore my heart wide open and he showed me every sin I'd ever committed from the time I was a kid until this present day.

He said, Pastor, it was just like looking into hell itself. He said, I can't explain it. He said, it's terrible. He said, you know, I was not faithful to my wife on one occasion. I've got to make this right with my wife.

I falsified a workman's compensation form in Regina. I've got to go back. I've got thousands of dollars. I've got some guys to lie for me that I was hurting a job. I wasn't hurting a job. I was hurting a parchment.

I've got thousands of dollars anyway. I've got to go and make that right. And then here's what he said. I don't care if I lose my wife and family. I don't care if I lose my job and I don't care if I go to jail.

But I can't stand the pressure of God on my soul. Now that's revival. That's revival. He wasn't even in the meeting when this happened. And so when the Spirit of God is working, it's a totally different story.

Revival Begins With Christians Facing Their Sin

And this is revival. God's children being touched by God and made to see their sin. We often, when we sing that song, O Holy Ghost, revival comes from thee. Send a revival. Start the work in me. But we don't really mean it, you know.

We're not being honest with God. He talks to us about our sins. We don't do anything about it. And we still keep praying for revival. And so the history of revival shows they don't all follow the same pattern, but they do follow the same pattern in some respects.

There's always deep and powerful conviction of sin on the part of Christians. And when Christians start getting right with God, then God has no problem saving sinners. The problem sinners, they seem Christians.

They don't like what they see. They're not impressed by the way we live. We live so close to the way the world lives, there's hardly any difference. We're selfish with our money. We buy all kinds of things we don't really need.

Prayer, Fasting, and Seeking God’s Face

And I remember in meetings one time, it was a Flames of Freedom rally a weekend, and I found a room over an organ loft. And this room had nothing but pails and mops. So I didn't worry about that. I got a chair in there.

And then in between the sessions, I spoke a number of times. But in between the sessions, I did nothing but pray. I fasted and prayed the whole weekend. I never took a meal even, and just sought the face of God.

Recognizing God’s Work in Revival

And in that last meeting, God did something unusual. I finished the meeting, and then I turned to Ralph Sutterer and asked Ralph to close the meeting. And Ralph closed the meeting. And afterwards, he said, were you not aware of what God was doing down there?