Revival： The Pumping Of The Feet

Thank you again, dear sister, for that beautiful worship music. We are so honored again to welcome you all to a further session during this Revival Conference arranged by our dear brother. And we now come to the next part.

We also again welcome all those that are on the Internet and are worshiping with us. So I would like to introduce to you Dr. Al Whittingill. He is a speaker with Ambassadors for Christ International. He's traveling for the Billy Graham organization to the Far East.

I believe Dr. Whittingill was here just a moment ago. And here he is. Praise God. We are so glad to welcome you, dear brother. And we would like for you to come now to give us the word that God has laid on your heart.

Praise God. And we would also like to ask Dr. Glenn Shepard to come and to dedicate our dear brother and the message that God has laid on his heart to challenge us and to bring revival.

You've heard it coming from the prayer room while I came from somewhere else. We want to thank you for the wonder of your word that has been so powerfully proclaimed. You've been exalted. You've been magnified.

And as we come to this portion, I bless my brother. And he is my brother. We walked so many years together. And I thank you for him. And I ask that you would give him clarity of mind, unction of the holy power of heaven, and an anointing to deliver your word for your glory and for our edifice.

Jesus' name. I almost feel like we need to go home and meditate and ruminate on what Brother Malachi shared. I told him, I said, I hate following that. Every preacher in the room knows what that must be like.

But you know, I said, Lord, it's loaves and fishes. But he said, the miracles in them, they're not the miracle. I'm the miracle. So, I really praise the Lord for the privilege of being here. And this conference has a heritage over the years of a stewardship of the mysteries of God.

And I got a call early this morning. People were concerned about not many people being visually here. But the Lord spoke to me after that and said that this kind of conference is one of the arteries of his heart to the body outside.

So, when we go home, you see, that's, God never, he never waits to the trenches to give you your ammunition. He loads you up before you get in the trenches. He wants to, the law before the commission, there's the great communion that must take place and the great consecration and response deep inside.

Most of us think we respond to a word like that, but I need to go pray about that. So, I want to thank the hospitality of this wonderful church body. We've really been to a lot of conferences and you've really been wonderful to us.

Thank you. And to Shane and his family and his children. He has five children. I have five children. I have 18 grandchildren. He's just catching up. But thank God for what's happening here. Do you sense the divine moment and where you are?

Are you like me that so often you look back and it's like Jacob and you say, surely the Lord was in that place more than I realized and I needed to listen more intently and earnestly and respond to what he says.

Revival Begins With Intimacy With God

So, there's a stirring and I just hope you sense the divine moment and that God's biggest doors often have very small hinges and if you look back on the revivals of history they all start small and they all end huge and glorious and sometimes they fade out, quenched out by the world, but last night I was stirred all night because just waking up I didn't sleep very well because I was up to 1 .30 thinking about today and tomorrow and praying and then couldn't go back to sleep really, you know, and I felt like the Lord said to me you all think you're calling on me for revival but the truth is I'm seeking you.

I'm getting you in on something and I just felt that was so encouraging because like he says in Hosea's day he said, oh Israel, you have destroyed yourself but your hope is in me and our hope is in him.

Let me pray. Father I also bow my heart before you and claim that verse knowing it's true that in my flesh dwells no good thing but that deposit that you put in this band of people whose hearts the Lord has touched.

You have not left us as orphans. You have made us in the family of God and you had it planned for us before the foundation of the world that we, Lord, could be chosen by you to go and bring forth fruit and you say in the scripture that your fruit is from me.

The life that flows through the seed that comes out and you plant and you water and we have the privilege of being co-laborers with you. Teach us that your goal in revival is world harvest. It is to bring precious souls to yourself, not just to finish your church.

We'll be finished in heaven. We'll be far. All our problems will be gone in the fullest sense of the word. So, Lord you left us here for your glorious purposes and we pray that you will show us now something in the scripture that will take home for many days and bring us into an intimacy with yourself.

We know it's one thing for you to pour your spirit out upon your church in revival where everybody gets saturated with the presence of God. We need this. We long for this, but we know when you do that your goal is this, to open up inside of us a fountain, a river of living waters of your overflowing radiant, glorious, moment by moment presence from within the inner man, the spirit.

So, teach us how to walk as it was in the days of Noah. Water is from above and water is from within. Lord Jesus, make us yours in this sense. Bring us to an intimacy and rend the heavens and come down, but break the hearts and come out what you've deposited in us.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, it was this morning that the Lord reminded me of this picture that years ago when I was first being called into the ministry that I was praying. You say, how do you know this is from the Lord?

Because it's way too smart or good for me to ever dream up. I saw this picture of an acorn. You know, he did this to a lot of people. He shows you something and he asks you a question. Now, when God asks you a question, it's not because he does not know the answer.

It's because he wants you to answer and if he asks you the same question again, it's because your first answer was a lie. And so, he showed me an acorn and I heard that, you know, in the old King James, what seest thou?

And I said, an oak tree. You know, trying to be spiritual. And the Lord, you know, an oak tree. After years of being planted and watered and cultivated in those storms, you know, very picturesque and an oak tree that holds its ground.

And he said, that's what I thought you'd say. I wanted you to see a forest. The reason you couldn't see the forest for the tree was because you were looking at the visible and the explainable and the potential.

But I wanted you to see the life on the inside. That when this is planted, it can multiply and reproduce. And then he says to me, what do you see when you see yourself? I knew where he was going. I didn't like it.

And I said, well, as many years have passed, some old gray-haired guy that has been around and you've blessed and I've grown and I've matured and I've had children and all this is wonderful. And he said, that's what I thought you'd say.

I wanted you to see a multitude of disciples. And the reason you couldn't see the disciples was because you're just looking in terms of what you can do for me or I can do and make you into instead of seeing the potential of the life of God that's in the spirit of man that as you fall into the ground as a corn of wheat and die and lose your life to find it like Sarah has been sharing with us, there can come forth a harvest.

Fruit that remains. And so, I was thinking too that no nation that's ever experienced revival has ever deserved it. The church has not prayed enough. We could never say we've done everything you want us to conditional grace to do.

It's always mercy and grace and that is what we need to hear today. That there is hope yet and we'll lift up our eyes and look and trust Him. You see, the law of all fruit bearing is an intimate relationship.

An intimate relationship with the risen Lord Jesus who's on the throne and He is Lord of all. He bears it out for us in nature and He gives parables and we see it every day that unless you have an apple tree with a branch in the tree, it's not going to bring forth apples.

There's got to be an intimate union. A relationship. It's in the animal world as well. If you have a dog and you love this dog and you want to have puppies, you're never going to be able to have puppies unless it has a relationship with another dog in an intimate way.

The law of all fruit bearing is an intimate relationship. It's the same thing in the human realm. You can pronounce somebody married. You're married in Jesus' name and they're married but they'll never have children or fruit bearing unless there's an intimate relationship.

So why do we think it would be any different when it comes to the spiritual realm of which God speaks to us the big picture through little pictures and He speaks to us as these children with graphic, visual, dynamic heart grabbing pictures like Xavier.

Oh, guard your heart. Guard your arteries with all diligence and God guarded His because He was too young to guard His own. We're prone to forget this law of fruit bearing apart from our intimate relationship with Jesus, apart from Him we can do nothing, be nothing.

We should say nothing unless it's from Him. We often think it's the size of our budget or the amount of planning or how much publicity we've done or how sincere we've been or how many years we've been studying the Bible.

We look at all these reasons to explain but God says, look the reason for all of this is my life that's in you. My life. Not just knowledge at a distance of a historic Savior but a throbbing heartbeat from the throne room of God and I want to speak to you that way the Lord says to us.

Prayer as the Hidden Spring of Revival

Well, you know, from the earliest days in the settlement of our country to our present day, the history of America has not been the history of revolution or reformation. The history of America for those who have ears to understand it and eyes to see it is a history of revival and the fabric of the people that we hold dear, that had Christian heartbeat into all these things we say for Christian heritage.

Their teeth were cut in the Word of God in those early years. In the cradle of all of this in New England, in those early years there's been four great awakenings in our country. Some say three but we heard one described by Brother Guzik about California and that and I think we would have to say that was a fourth.

Wouldn't you agree, Glenn, that that was a fourth? Can you imagine what it was like to look across the nation and see millions of people coming together to pray that hadn't been interested before? And all of a sudden, from sea to shining sea, they're praising God, they're singing.

The churches, you don't have to do publicity, they fill up and people sit outside and they're praising God and they're worshiping God. You see, well, this happened and it's our only hope again, I believe this.

In each of these times that it happened, it came as a result, specifically of people crying out to God. Every time God's ever moved, there's always been a hidden spring. The prayer meeting, the people who bowed their knee and prayed and laid hold of His promises with pleadings and tears and passion.

This is what has always been His law of increase when it comes to intimacy with Him where we lay hold of Him and plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth and He says, concerning the works of my hands, command ye me, Isaiah 45, 11, you tell me what to do because I want you to grow in grace and knowledge of what I want to do and then I want to make you a co-laborer with me as I do it all around you and I don't want you to ever get over it.

I want you to be in awe. If you can hear something like Xavier and not be stunned and awed and blessed, then maybe you've been maybe you're tired. I don't know. But the leadership of our nation has said each time that America was at the edge of a precipice and about to dissolve and be destroyed.

Even Lincoln said that God brought the country back because He has a fuller purpose and it's not just red, white, and blue. It's to take the gospel and the churches to flourish. But He saved us from the end of our nation.

But now in America, you see, those four awakenings took place in the early part of our 242 year history. It's been over 100 years since we've had national repentance in our nation. And Christianity, North America, is the only continent on the planet where Christianity is shrinking.

But yet, this is in spite of 60 years of the most organized, enabled evangelism and outreach and activities and mechanisms that you've ever had in the history of the world and a population increase and all these things, but yet overseas, where they have almost nothing, they are exploding in many places.

And it's because of what we're talking about today, the bowing of the knee. The bowing of the knee. And when the Lord said, go and agonize in the upper room, my old friend Raven, who used to say he must have thought this, said, go organize in this upper room because that's where they went.

And nobody showed up hardly at all compared to... He appeared to over 500 people, but about 120 showed up. The upper room was the cradle of Pentecost. Pentecost came to a prayer meeting, not to a preaching meeting.

It turned into a preaching meeting. But it was prayer that brought the heavens to open. So we've come to a point in our nation where it seems that beyond the visible, that it's the powers that be are behind the scenes and they've chosen the path.

We have chosen the path of rejecting God for some years. Now this is not a political message, but we live in a country that God's placed you here for such a time as this. And God wants to do much with little.

You see, we've chosen the path of rejecting God. And here's where we are. His promises are being dismissed. His character is being assailed. His mercy is being taken for granted. His commandments are being scorned and even mocked.

And His goodness is taken for granted. His ways are ridiculed. His name is being mocked. The world has forbidden prayer and real praise in an open way. And this is scary. His threatenings are being ignored.

We live in a day, a crisis of growing darkness. And it's a scary thing indeed. And the sad thing, and what seems worst of all, is that the church seems powerless to do anything about it. In fact, I would say this, the future of our nation is not going to be decided in the Supreme Court or the White House.

It will be decided by the church of the Lord Jesus. It will be determined whether we continue or go the way of all the relics of history whose historic monuments lay there and testify the nation that forgets God will be turned to ashes and dissolved.

That's what He says. Righteousness exalts a nation. The presence of God, that's what that means in the people. Not just doing the right thing, but righteousness you see. So, each of these movements in the past have come as a result of people crying out and rediscovering that communion and intimacy to where they entered into what He wanted to do.

He's on search here today for people to go home. This is not just for here. This is for you to take back and plant the heavens and lay the foundations for generations to come. Not just to see a growing tree, but a forest of disciples and people who glorify God.

Nameless maybe, but not forgotten and precious to God. And so, we have a crisis of growing darkness and the marks of divine judgment saturate our land. It may be remedial. It may be a warning. That's what He does.

Like we say to our children, don't do this or else. We try to have mercy. We try to really show them along the way, but God, there will come a time when you see God, He never makes an idle threat. And seldom do nations, when He warns them, do they take it as true.

But in the last few years there have been nations throughout history that you don't read anymore. You look at their monuments. See, people moralize in ruins. They go and they look and they say they don't learn from history.

Somebody said the reason that history repeats itself is because we weren't listening the first time. On the National Archives building in Washington, it says history is prologue. Now, I know that's all natural, but I'm just saying this.

The Word of God is not prologue. I mean, it's not just prologue. It's eternal. And God gives examples and pictures for us to learn from. He says all these things that were written were written for our learning, for our warning, those of us upon whom the age have come.

They're written to be teaching us His wisdom. He says it in Romans 15 and 1 Corinthians 10. Learn from the history of the church. So I want to look at some Scripture. I want to take us to Deuteronomy 4, Deuteronomy chapter 6.

I hope you have your Bible, because we're going to look at a lot of Scriptures. And I want you to write them down. Go home and ruminate over them, because this is the bigger picture, I hope, I believe, of what He's...this is a historic look at God's heart behind when He opens the heavens.

And it's revival comes to a people, not just a place. It's not the revival in Wales. It's revival on the church in Wales and when Wales is awakened. It's revival that spills out and becomes a forest of His blessing through hearts that are faithful with what He gives.

So, from the book of Deuteronomy. You know, Deuteronomy is the book that our Lord Jesus quoted the most from. Hadab Harim it means the words. And it was the only book that every king had to write out longhand before he became king.

It's a lot of good things in Deuteronomy. It all happened in about 40 days. It's an awesome book. It's an awesome book. Here's the setting. Let me read Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4 and following. He says, well let me give you the background of where they are.

They're on the edge of the promised land. Major change is coming for them. They've been wilderness livers for the last 40 years. They've forgotten to circumcise themselves or either chose not to. They hadn't kept the Passover except for the first year when they came out of Egypt.

They'd really forgotten what it was like. But God's love was on them and He was going to bring them into a mighty land. And here's what He says to them. And this is called the Shema to the Jewish people.

They love this. It's what they put in the mezuzah outside their door. Listen to what it says, verse 4. He puts in mind when He adds a fourth thing. And these words, which I command you this day, they shall be in your notebook.

Is that what it says? They shall be on your smart phone. They shall be in your heart. And teach them diligently. Oh, He loves that word. To your children, talk of them when you sit in your house, when you're walking along the way, when you lie down, when you rise up.

It's a constant speaking of what your heart is meditating because it's in your heart the Word of God. And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand and be like frontlets before your eyes. Write them on the posts of your doors, the posts of your house and on your gates more than just your house.

This is what those frontlets mean when they put the leather. It's a picture of what it's supposed to be inwardly. The Word of God in your mind and the Word of God whatever your hand does. And that's what God wants.

He wants that intimacy with His people. And so His people now here in this setting are about to move into the promised land. Forty years they've been living. Somebody said before a preacher, here's what wilderness living is.

It's a diet of Hebrew stems and Greek roots. Maybe that's true. They've been living just in the wilderness far from God's actual presence in the sense of knowing what He has for them coming in the promised land.

And He led them and He provided for them but He has more. So the children of Israel about to enter the promised land and they were aware that God had given them manna and they were struggling as they're about to face the giants you might say that were keeping them from ultimate victory.

And standing at the place of new beginning He speaks to them of His love. Now the other four the rest of the Torah, the love of God is not mentioned in the Torah until now in Deuteronomy. Did you know that?

I mean He may say take Isaac whom you love. But that's the first mention of love but love's not mentioned. It's like your father loves you. God loves you. That's not there until Deuteronomy. And so God is reminding His people of the necessity of a continuing deep love, intimacy with Him.

And He says over in chapter 30, you should write this down because this is New Testament kind of speaking. He says in Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 19, I call heaven and earth to record this day against you.

I've set before you life and death blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life for you and your children they may live and so that you may love the Lord your God and that which you may obey His voice.

That's not just legalism. That's love in response that you may cleave to Him for He is your life in the length of your days and so that you may dwell in the land which the Lord has sworn, has appointed for your fathers Abraham Isaac and Jacob.

So the Lord is warning them before they go in to this land. I love you. I long for you. I am the Lord your God. I brought you up out of the land of Egypt by the blood of the Lamb and the blood that was shed for you.

Now you have taken the Lamb in you and you're walking in the promises and the covenant of God and you're under His care and banner and I fed you with manna from heaven. I'm the Lord your God and you're in covenant with me.

But then He says He says, but I want to warn you in advance of the peril of blessing. I want you to be careful when you go in. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 10 and following. Here's what He says to them.

Deuteronomy 6 verse 10. It shall be when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which He swore to your fathers Abraham and Isaac and Jacob to give great and goodly cities which you didn't build.

This is all by grace you see. And the houses are full of good things which you didn't fill and wells that are dug which you didn't dig and vineyards and olive trees that you didn't plant and you've eaten and you're full.

Then beware, be careful lest you forget the Lord Himself it's saying who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. See He's calling them to that awareness of intimacy and who He is.

You shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him and you shall swear by His name. Oh we don't put enough on His name. You shall not go after the other gods, the gods of the people which are around you, the sports gods, the computer gods the sex gods, the business gods, you know I forget the idols it's the spirit behind them.

Don't go after that for the Lord your God is a jealous God among you lest the anger of the Lord your God if you go against Him will be kindled against you and He will destroy you from off the earth. Over in Isaiah he says you have turned yourself into my enemy.

I love you but you by your constant kicking against what I'm saying and moving away have turned yourself into my enemy. You shall not tempt the Lord your God like you tested Him in Massa. See this is not just old covenant here.

He brought us out it says a little later that He might bring us in He saved us like our dear sister pre-sang I loved that. When she sang that you have brought me to be healed and delivered it's all I could do is stay in my seat.

I don't know about you but I just told her I said it came from the well. The bucket came up from deep and it was every one of us was touched and she has a ministry of that. That she is to now tend and cultivate and multiply as the Lord uses her.

So He says I want to warn you in advance take heed, beware, hearken consider in your heart. Look at chapter 8 when He says beginning in verse 7 He says for the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land it sounds repetitious.

A land of brooks and water and fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills. A land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates oil, olive. You see ours is not milk and honey.

Ours is mink and money here in America. A land where you could eat bread without any scarcity and you don't lack anything in it. A land whose stones there is wealth in them and you bring out of the hills well when you have eaten verse 10 and you have become full then you should bless the Lord your God for the good land.

I guess the goodness of God was to lead them into ongoing repentance and a love with Him. Beware lest you forget that you forget not the Lord your God in keeping His word, His commandments, His judgments, His statutes.

The ones that I've told you here this day. Otherwise when you've eaten and you've become full and you've built nice houses and you're dwelling in them and when your herds and your flocks multiply. See multiply is a word about Canaan.

You're multiplying your flocks. You're multiplying your silver and gold and all you have is multiplied by God. Then your heart be lifted up and you forget the Lord your God which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage.

So he's saying all these things that I brought you through was to humble you and to bring your heart to a place of revelation before me. Verse 19 and it shall be that if you do it all forget the Lord your God and walk after these other gods and serve them and worship them.

I testify to you this day that you will perish. I don't think he was saying that you're going to be on my blacklist in the sense of I hate you. He's saying that it's going to be dissolved apart from me.

You're nothing. Men will gather you. They will gather you like branches and they will put you in the world's fires and your testimony is gone. As the nations which the Lord destroyed before your face the same way you will perish because you would not listen to the voice be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.

In chapter 10 verse 12 he says now Israel what does the Lord require of you but to fear the Lord to walk in his ways. Moses knew his ways. Israel knew his works that it never enter into his heart beat his ways and love him serve the Lord with your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

And then I skip back to read from chapter 5 verse 29 chapter 5 verse 29 listen to this he says Oh that there were such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep my commandments all the time that it might be well with them and with their children so if you ask him to hear his grace in those words he's calling them into a relationship and I want you to be careful I want to warn you in advance of the peril of being blessed and having prosperity.

Jeremiah calls it the curse of prosperity because it can lure your heart away you can you may not love the things of the world you might just love the way the world does things and you can be worldly that same way but so I'm going to do a new thing and it's a vivid lesson so I want you to turn to our text really in chapter 11 chapter 11 beginning in verse 10 or let me read verse 7 your eyes have seen all the great acts of the Lord which he did.

Most of us are in this room today because we have a knowledge to a degree of what God can do when he decides to move in a glorious manifestation among his people and in a community when the presence of God is felt and known and things like Xavier happen like breathing.

We don't know it much here because we have a generation that's never seen real revival. We've heard with our ears but we hadn't yet seen with our eyes. But their eyes had seen they'd seen all those works.

He even says to them I'm not going to hold your children that didn't see these things as accountable. They can have 20 years but yet you've seen. And he says verse 10 here's the bottom line. For the land in which you're going in to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you came out where you sowed your seed.

See there's that fruit possibility. You sowed your seed and here's the word you watered it with your foot. What does that mean. As a garden of herbs you watered it. So he's saying here listen contrast.

But the land in which you're going to possess is a land of hills and valleys and it drinks from the rain of heaven. Now you don't have to study the scriptures long to know about the Hebrew Geshem. It was called Moray and Yoray the former and the latter.

Rain. There's 10 words for rain in Hebrew. It's a big deal. They needed water even more than you do here in California at the end of the summer their summer everybody was every cell of their body was longing for the refreshing.

And I like what he called it the best definition of Revival. Acts 3 .19 times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. It's like rain from heaven. Hosea 6 .3. Then shall we know if we go on to know the Lord he will come to us as the rain.

And you see all through the scripture the promise of rain that God gives. It's a picture of the outpouring of the spirit of God upon awaiting people who are in a dry and thirsty land and they're looking to him for refreshing from his presence.

And so he says to them the land in which you're going to it's a land that God himself will care for and his eyes are always upon it just like it's always on his church from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year.

He's saying listen everything in the Mideast depends on rain. Everything even maybe more than here you see. And it's the great essential. But you see Israel had no rainfall almost at all. They depended upon a worldly resource called the Nile River and it was a huge resource and it's a picture of the way the world does things.

Because you see when I was in Egypt I looked at this and I saw this actually taking place. The way they planted their seed and the way they made it grow was they pumped up the water from the Nile an earthly resource by their feet.

I saw this. Here's a little guy on a little thing that looked like a bicycle sitting right beside the Nile and on this bicycle sprocket there's a big rope that goes down with jugs put on it. In those days it was clay pots and it would go down a bunch of little jugs on a rope and as he pedaled like this it would make that jug go down underneath the water and pick it up and it'd keep coming up and it'd go plush plush and dump it up where he's pedaling.

It'd bring it up from the earthly source and dump it in. And they made ditches and they would fill these ditches with water and turn all that yellowish orangish ugly dirty color. There'd be oxen bathing in the Nile and people bathing and you see a dead body float by.

It's an unclean source. The world does it that way but it depends upon human ingenuity human energy. And it's very clever the way they do this you see. But it's a water supply depending on man the way that you will get what you need to do to make the seed grow is to sweat and labor and plan and work and continue pumping your feet pumping your feet.

They also put a big ox on a big stick. You've seen those they walk in circles and it raises up the water. You know bringing up your water. But it's not something you just want to just drink even out of the tap the water that's there a well planned well managed flesh sustained way of doing things.

Natural resource plus human energy equals a natural result. What a picture. But it's quite a contrast with Canaan as we just read the land which you're going doesn't have a river like that. The Jordan can't do that.

You can't use that water to irrigate. You're going to have a different situation. You see it's going to have a heavenly water supply that the Lord your God will faithfully send to you at his appointed seasons and at appointed times.

It's pure it's fresh it is effortless. Can you imagine sitting in a pond going like this pedaling like crazy. And then this big rain starts happening. Who would be idiot enough to keep pedaling while all this water is falling on every side.