Lessons in Revival From Acts 1-2 — J. Edwin Orr

The Promise of Power in Acts 1

And I pointed out that the word means to change. It's one of the forgotten doctrines of revival. I wondered what I should say in the way of follow-up, and last night as I prayed about it, I felt that tonight I should speak to you on the first and second chapters of the Acts.

Just a key verse here and there. In the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 1, verse 6, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time deliver the kingdom to Israel? Israel came to deliver the people of God. Naturally, they said, are you going to deliver us now?

Are you going to liberate us? For you to know times of the days of the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, my witnesses in Jerusalem, and all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

He did not give them either a timetable or a blueprint. They seem to want that today, I should say, the Church seems to demand it. They like to know timetables, they like to arrange things, they like to have a blueprint on how to proceed.

But he said, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power. And what do we mean when we say, you shall receive power? Well, it is agreed we mean the power of the Holy Spirit.

But far too many people think of the power of the Holy Spirit as something for them to use, rather than as something that's going to use them. That seems to be the problem of today. I was talking to a farmer in Iowa.

I said, are you all ready for harvest? He said, that's the best tractor that money can buy, mechanical power. The Canadian and American farmers grow ten times as much food as the people can eat. That's why Canada has supplied wheat to China, and that's why the United States has supplied wheat to Russia.

But that was only a tractor. It lay under a tarpaulin. The farmer never consulted it once. He used it when he wanted to use it. That's not a good illustration of the power of the Holy Spirit. I'd rather think of a different one.

A migrant worker going from Kentucky up to the Cherry Harvest in Michigan, and he gets beyond Traverse City, he heads for an orchard. He doesn't ask the man working at the edge of the orchard, can you give me a job?

He says, where is the bus? And the man says, you see the fellow with the straw hat? That's the bus. Nice fellow. Good luck to you. So he approaches the bus. I'm looking for work. And the bus says, how much experience do you have?

Well, he says, I've been coming up here 15 summers now, running. All right, we can use you. Now, you see that far field there? You see the man in the blue jeans working by himself? You go to him and tell him that you and he are going to work that field.

This is the bus of the harvest. Now, the Lord Jesus said, pray ye there for the Lord of the harvest, and he will thrust forth labourers into his harvest. Who is the Lord of the harvest? Scripture answers its own question.

Who was it that said to the church of Antioch, separate unto me Barnabas and Saul for the work unto which I have called them? It was the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Lord of the harvest. As Christ accomplished our salvation on the cross, where is he now?

In heaven, interceding for us. But the Holy Spirit is the Lord of the harvest down below. He is in charge of the work of God. Maybe I could change the illustration again. I served for four years in the United States Air Force in World War II.

I discovered that in every military organization there is a commanding officer. To paraphrase Harry Truman, the buck stops here. His is the responsibility. But the commanding officer doesn't work around doing the other thing.

If you want to approach the commanding officer, you seek out his adjutant. You say, Captain, it's important for me to talk to the colonel. He says, all right, come tomorrow morning at ten o 'clock. At the same time, the colonel is busy.

The adjutant arranges for you to approach the commanding officer. But when the commanding officer wants something done, he doesn't give it to his adjutant. He sends for his executive officer. He says, Major, we're moving on Tuesday.

Make sure the men are fully equipped and ready to move. Using this only as an analogy, and all analogies break down at some point, God the Father is still in the throne. He is in command. Our Lord Jesus is our adjutant through whom we approach him.

We approach him in his name. We approach God in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. But when God wants something done, he gives it to his executive, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is in charge of the work of God.

Revival as an Outpouring of the Holy Spirit

I wish people could realize this. The secret of revival, the secret of awakening, is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. These outpourings of the Holy Spirit, which result in revival and awakening, are times of recruitment, when God the Holy Spirit chooses men for the light work, and sets in motion a new of Christian events.

Extraordinary Prayer and United Revival

Let's look further down this chapter. We come to verse 14. After naming the disciples who were in the upper room, it says, All these continued with one accord in prayer, together with the women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

The great missionary advocate stated once, There has never been a great revival in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer. It must be united prayer. Last night I quoted the title of one of Jonathan Edwards' greatest books, A Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of All God's People in Extraordinary Prayer for Revival of Religion.

You say, what do you mean by extraordinary prayer? Well, ask yourself the question, what is ordinary prayer? Do you pray before you eat? That's ordinary prayer. Do you pray before you go to bed? Do you pray when you get up in the morning?

That's ordinary prayer. Does your minister read the congregation and pray on Sunday morning? That's ordinary prayer. Do you meet once during the week to remember the needs of the congregation? That is also ordinary prayer.

And what is extraordinary prayer? When you hear of people giving up their lunchtime to pray, or having a half-night of prayer, or praying all night, or meeting regularly, or engaging in what has been called a concert of prayer, people all pray at a certain time.

Or setting up a round of prayer that people may pray, sometimes someone is praying for 24 hours. That's extraordinary prayer. And it's a need of extraordinary prayer that brings revival. They all lay with one accord.

Now there was unity. You have heard perhaps of the Scotsman that prayed, O God, bless me and my wife, my son John and his wife, us four, and me more. Amen. Well, that sounds very crude. Yet so often we pray for our own interests.

If you were to ask me the difference between conditions in the United States and conditions in some countries where there is revival, I would say that's the very point. When you get so concerned about an outpouring of God's Holy Spirit that you're willing to pray for the other man down the street, for the man with whom you have little in common even, then there's some hope of God answering, because that becomes unselfish prayer, and it becomes extraordinary.

Pentecost and the Meaning of Spiritual Phenomena

Let us turn to the second chapter of the Acts. When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together in one place. We are so familiar with the words of Scripture, we sometimes forget what they mean.

I was having supper one evening with a pastor of the First Baptist Church of Moscow. He was telling me about conditions in the Soviet Union. He said that the Lutherans were strongest in the West, due to German influence.

The Baptists were strongest in the South, chiefly in the Ukraine, but scattered all over the USSR. He said that the evangelical Christians who were followers of Lord Radstock, who had united with the Baptists, were stronger in the North, around Leningrad, which used to be St. Petersburg.

He mentioned the Seventh-day Adventists and said that they were proscribed, but they were forbidden to meet in some places. And then he mentioned the Fifty-day Christians. Now I had heard of the Molokans, I'd heard of the Dukhobors, but I'd never heard of any Fifty-day Christians.

So I said, who are the Fifty-day Christians? Oh, he said, don't you know? He said, I thought they were very strong in the States, but I couldn't think of them. He said, one of their denominations has its headquarters in Springfield, Missouri.

I said, you mean the Pentecostals? That's the word, Fifty-day Christians. That's what Pentecost means, fifty days. That's what the Russians called Pentecostals, Fifty-day Christians. Now fifty days, seven weeks and one day after the Passover, they were all together in one place.

Suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. Now we come into the realm of phenomena. Perhaps you could call it signs and wonders.

So could I ask the question, was there actually a tornado in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost? Were any roofs blown off? Were any doors blown in? Were any pedestrians blown off their feet? Apparently not.

Well, was there a tornado on the day of Pentecost? No, it doesn't say so. It says there was a sound from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind. It resembled it. One of my students at fellow theological seminary raised his hand and said, you mean that this was a subjective experience rather than an objective experience?

It takes some theological student to put it that way. But I had to say, yes, it was subjective rather than objective. But that doesn't mean it wasn't real to them. May I illustrate? Supposing you have an operation to your brain.

The doctor, first of all, prepends a skull. He lifts a little piece of skull up to expose the quivering gray matter underneath. The brain doesn't have as many pain in the operation. If the doctor takes a needle with a low electric discharge and touches part of your brain, suddenly before your eyes you see your old summer school teacher dead and gone these many years.

What has the doctor done? He has stimulated your memory. It's not a fine art yet, but this is well known. The doctor can stimulate your memory. Can God stimulate the memory? Can the Holy Spirit bring things to remembrance?

Of course he can. Could the doctor perhaps touch another part of your brain, your imagination? You might see something you never thought you would ever see. Can God do that? That's why you find occasionally, especially at the beginning of a new movement of the Spirit of God, dreams, visions, trances, and things like that.

The trouble is some people make far too much of these subjective experiences. They forget the word of God and the solid teaching of the word to check against. He's dead and gone. He wrote a book called For Sinners Only.

This man was editor of the Sunday Times, I think it was, in London. One of the big Sunday papers. He was wonderfully converted and became an evangelist. He traveled around Britain with me. One day he asked me, have you ever seen the Lord Jesus?

I said, what do you mean, seen him? I've seen him with the eye of faith. But he said, you've never really seen him. I said, why do you ask? I was speaking in a Church of England parish church in Devonshire when I saw the Lord Jesus come in and stand at the back.

And he spoke so reverently of this vision that he had. I was touched. But then I said to him quickly, do you tell many people about this? He said, why do you ask? I said, well, some people would be casting prayers before a swine.

There are such things as visions, but they're always private. Now the important thing is this A .J. Russell didn't get a big magnifying glass and go around the church looking among the flower beds for footprints to see if Jesus had really been there.

That's what's wrong with some people today. You'll find that sort of thing in a book describing the Indonesian revival. Sometimes they carry it far too far. You don't materialize these things. They're revelations to you, but they're always private and they're not binding on any other person.

I mention this because we live in an era where people are interested. We live in a time when people are interested in signs and wonders. A Church of England missionary in my class raised her hand the other day and said, sir, were there many healings in the ministry of John Wesley?

And I threw my mind over John Wesley's journal as much as I could remember. Then I said, I don't remember one. Well, I said, let me check. And when I checked, I found there was one. He prayed for the healing of his horse, and his horse was healed.

My missionary friend, who was a charismatic Anglican, was disappointed. He said, was it a real revival? I said, was it a real revival? Of course it was. But I said, do you realize that before 1830, nobody, hardly anyone ever mentioned the second coming?

Before the days of A .B. Simpson, scarcely anyone mentioned divine healing. And it's really only in the 20th century that there's been a recovery of interest in such a thing as glossolalia, speaking in tongues.

I believe in the Gifts. Not to say it took the greatest weight and ever swept this country, 1858. There wasn't one case of speaking in tongues. When it reached Britain in 1859, there wasn't one case recorded of speaking in tongues.

But when it reached India, it broke out in Tenerbelly among the Episcopalians. There were dreams, visions, trances, healings, just so much to keep you from forming a theory. I say that sincerely. Now, I mention this because some people revival with signs and wonders.

The Marks of Genuine Revival

But the abiding thing that you find from generation to generation, that marks out a time of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is first of all an extraordinary spirit of prayer. Then an intense conviction of sin.

Then confession, restitution, reconciliation, and then a burden to try and reach people near hand or far away. That marks every revival. Continuing on through chapter 2, Peter stood up before this multitude who had been brought together by these strange things.

He said, these men are not drunk, as you suppose, seeing as it's only nine o 'clock in the morning. I was once preaching in Kerala, in India, when a man belonging to a way out group came up to me and said, you know nothing about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

He said, if you knew something about it, you'd act as if you were drunk. I said, why is that? Well, the disciples on the day of Pentecost acted as if they were drunk. I said, I served as a chaplain for four years, and I've seen men drunk.

In fact, I've put both officers and men to bed drunk, rather than to see them get hurt. But I've noticed that drunkenness occurs in four stages. The first stage is, when a man is first intoxicated, he'll do anything for you, he'll say, buddy, old buddy, what can I do for you?

That's the time to ask him for a loan. He'll lend you anything he has. The second stage of drunkenness is belligerence. He wants to pick a fight. He says, you insulted me. I didn't say a word. You insulted me for not saying a word.

And he's ready to fight you. The third stage of drunkenness, disgusting. He's an exhibitionist. Misbehaves. Makes you feel ashamed. The fourth stage of drunkenness is unconscious. He's out cool, as we say.

Now, I said to my Indian friend, how do you think the disciples behaved in the day of Pentecost? Were they unconscious? No. Were they disgusting? No. Were they belligerent? They were just so happy, they were like people celebrating at a wedding.

They were full of joy. Now, these men were not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine o 'clock in the morning. But this is what was spoken of by the prophet Joel. In the last days it shall be, God declares, I will pour out my Spirit for all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

The Spirit Poured Out on the Whole Body of Christ

The mark of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit is that it's a work of generality. The Holy Spirit is poured out upon the whole body of Christ. I think I mentioned yesterday that I was talking to the dean of a very famous college, and I mentioned I was researching the 1858 revival.

He said, who started that, Moody? No, it wasn't Moody who started it. It was during that revival that God called Moody. People don't seem to understand that these great revivals are not the work of great revivalists.

They produce great men of God. The outpouring comes upon the whole body of Christ, your sons and your daughters, especially upon the young people. Your young men shall see visions. They suddenly get a vision of what God wants them to do.

And your old men shall dream dreams. There are old men today who say, Oh, I would love to see it happen again. They're dreaming dreams. They want to see them fulfilled again. Now, you say, but Peter preached.

If you read the rest of the chapter, it was Peter that preached. If Peter said, this is that which is spoken of by the prophet Joel, your sons and your daughters for prophecy, then the sons and daughters had to be prophesying for him to say that.

He couldn't have said, this is that, unless it was actually being fulfilled. That which was happening, not merely the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the upper room, the tongues of fire, but these people suddenly imbued with holy boldness to witness, so that they were themselves the prophets of the Lord.

I think I mentioned to you that before this time, the Holy Spirit had come upon individuals only. We call them prophets. Overflowing ones. But the difference, to mark out the beginning of the Christian era, is that the Holy Spirit has promised to come upon the whole body of Christ, that from the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Which shows that the outreach is not only to the church, but to the unchurched. The apostle Peter preached Christ crucified, Christ raised from the dead. Now we come to the climax of that great meeting.

Conviction of Sin and the Call to Repentance

Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart. Evil translation. Pricked? I remember as a boy in school, taking a pin from my lapel, and sticking it in the wrong end of a boy sitting in front of me.

He turned around and said, who did that? Of course no one would tell him. Come on, he said, I'm going to find out. Lapels don't tell on each other. He never did find out. I've forgotten who the boy was, or even write to him now and tell him I was the one that did it.

What did I do to him? I pricked him. Did he scream? No, he didn't scream. Well, did he yell? No, he didn't yell either. Did he faint? Not at all. Did he collapse? No. Did he bleed? No. A football game, he wouldn't even have felt it.

What did I do to him? I just made him pay attention, that was all. Now, is that the translation? When they heard this, they were pricked in their heart? I used to imagine for myself this great crowd standing before the Apostle Peter.

And after he had preached, one raised his hand and said, that's all very interesting, now what do you advise us to do? And Peter said, well, if you come forward, we'll wait behind, we'll give you some navigator material and help you on your way.

Something mild like that. E .T. Robertson, that great Greek scholar from Louisville, Kentucky, said this is a very poor translation. There's a Greek verb used here, which was first used in the writings of Homer, the first Greek poet.

A strong verb. Today, if someone kill prisoners, they'll line them up and just pull the trigger of, doesn't require much muscular effort. Killing prisoners was difficult. So what the Greeks did was, they tied up their prisoners, hand and foot, threw them on the pavement and tramped the horses over them until they were dead.

Cruel death. It speaks of irresistible force on the one hand and utter helplessness on the other. So E .T. Robertson says that's the verb that's used here. Irresistible force, utter helplessness in conviction of sin.

And the best translation he says is, when they heard this, they were stabbed to the heart. God forbid you were walking home and someone came behind you and stuck a knife between your shoulder blades. Who did that?

I'm going to find out. Come on now. No, you'd scream. You'd try to run, but you'd collapse in a heap and you'd bleed to death unless an ambulance got to you. That's the word that's used here. And in times of revival, there is irresistible conviction of sin.

It's one of the marks of these outpourings. Do you realize how difficult it is to convict someone of sin? You speak to them and they get very angry with you. They say, well, I'm at least better than some of the hypocrites in your church and will argue with you.

Why is it in times of revival there is such conviction of sin? In the 1858 revival, they started a prayer meeting in Kalamazoo in Michigan. It was led by an Episcopal layman. He said, I don't know much about this type of prayer meeting, but we'll follow the instructions we have in the New York papers.

I see our rector is here. We'll ask him if he will open the meeting with prayer. I see the Methodist minister is here. Perhaps he will read the scripture. But he said, there are so many people here, I doubt if you'll get a chance to pray.

Will you write your request on a sliver of paper, pass it up to me, and I will read it and someone will pray for you. The purpose of this meeting is to pray. The first request passed forward was, a praying woman asks the prayers of this country for her conversion of her husband, who is far from God.

Immediately, a blacksmith in his apron stood up and said, my wife prays for me, I'm far from God, could somebody help me? A lawyer got up and said, I'm sure it was my wife, that's it, because I know she prays for me and I need your help.

Five husbands converted immediately. In evangelism, the evangelist seeks the sinner. In these times of spiritual awakening, the sinners come running to God. They were cooked to the heart, they were stabbed to the heart, they said, men and brethren, what shall we do?

Then comes that word that I preached on last night, the missing word in times of awakening. He said, repent. That means change. Change. Change your attitude. Can we illustrate this from happenings? I think it's fair.

Revival in Korea: Prayer, Ingathering, and Cleansing

In 1904, a chiefly Presbyterian and Methodist, in the north they were Presbyterian. But they said, well, it's one thing to see a revival in a country like Wales, it would be totally different in a heathen country like Korea.

So they didn't expect, but they prayed, oh God, do something for us here. They started prayer meetings, but a Presbyterian minister, Howard Agnew Johnson, arrived from Chicago. He told them that he had visited the revival in Wales, and coming on around the world had visited the outbreak of revival in India.

It began in the Cassia Hills, and he told the Korean missionaries about it. They said, well, if it can happen in India, it can happen here. North Korea has a very cold climate, a bit like Saskatchewan.

The ground is frozen three months of the year. The farmers can't work outside, it's so cold. The Presbyterian missionaries had a wonderful idea. Why not use the worst week of the winter for a Bible school?

Bring the farmers to town. Let them stay with relatives. If they don't have relatives, some church people, some friends will put them up. It became so successful that in January 1907, the Central Presbyterian Church was filled with men, and the Southgate Church was filled with women, about 1 ,500 in each.

One evening, Dr. Grayne Lee, an American, was leading the meeting. He said, briskly, before we have our Bible study, let's have a short season of prayer. Mr. Kim, would you care to open with prayer? Mr. Young, would you conclude?

One or two others, but Mr. Young, be ready to conclude. What he meant was, let's have a little prayer, but not too much. We've got to get to the Bible study. While Mr. Kim was praying, six other men were waiting their turn, standing on their feet, waiting their turn.

When the second man prayed, there were a dozen. When the third man prayed, there were more than a score. After five men had prayed, Mr. Young thought it was his duty to conclude the season of prayer. He got up to thank God for the time of prayer, but someone beat him to it every time, and prayed him down.

He kept, continued praying, until finally, Grayne Lee shouted, stop! Until he got silence. He said, well, apparently, you want to pray. All right then, you may pray. What happened next, he didn't expect.

All 1 ,500 men stood to their feet and began to pray, audibly, simultaneously. He was there, he died a few years ago in the Presbyterian Retirement Home in Vaughty, in California. His name was William Newton Blair.

He said, the effect was not confusion, but a vast harmony of sound and spirit, like the ocean on a beach. Everyone praying. And as the prayer continued, an intense conviction of sin settled in the meeting.

A Korean elder stood to his feet, and confessed a grudge against an American missionary. I find out afterwards, it was my friend William Newton Blair. This was his Korean co-worker. He didn't know that the man had a grudge against him.

But there are often tensions that come because of transcultural conflict and so on. People don't understand each other, or do things differently. Blair wanted to offer forgiveness. He thought he might do it in prayer, so he stood up and he was going to pray, Heavenly Father, bless our dear brother, who so courageously has confessed his fault.

But he got no further than saying, Up with thee, Father. When, according to those who were there, it seemed as if the roof were lifted. And a great power fell upon the whole audience. Now there's an Englishman there, Lord William Cecil, a nobleman.

I have no idea what he was doing in Korea. Never been able to find that out. But this was such a startling experience. He did what an Englishman does when he's excited. He wrote a letter to the London Times.

And if you want to read the Korean Revival, you can find it in the London Times. He said, Before everyone's eyes, his sins were rising in condemnation of his life. That's what marks revival. Now, when I go to a Billy Graham crusade, I'm there as a supporter.

It's not that I say give it to them, Billy, or anything like that. But I'm with him in spirit, especially when he gives his invitation. I pray, Lord, grant that some may respond. But I'm there as a supporter.

In times of revival, the Holy Spirit speaks to everyone, including the chairman and the speaker and everyone else, about the things that are wrong in their lives. There were some terrible confessions made.

Absolutely out of the control of the missionaries. The missionaries, because it was a new field, were trying to keep control of things, but they had no control of that meeting. At two o 'clock in the morning, there was a pause from sheer exhaustion, and they succeeded in pronouncing the benediction and getting the sin-summoning to go home.

Some went home to pray, some went home to sleep. The missionaries the next morning called an emergency meeting. They said, We were praying for revival, but we didn't expect this storm. The Presbyterian missionary said, After the storm, there's always a calm.

And tonight we bind up their wounds with the balm of Gilead. Well, his plans were not fulfilled, because that evening it broke out again. And next night, again and again. I asked William Eaton Blair were there any holdouts.

Oh yes. He said there was one man, a Presbyterian elder, who got up and mumbled some kind of confession that never seemed to get to the point, until a woman's confession exposed him. And they had to remove him from the eldership.

He said the last thing they heard of him, he was running a brothel, commercializing his vice. Did you know that in that moment, there were 79 converts added to the churches? John Wesley died after 50 years of noble work in Britain and left 70 ,000 Methodists in the societies.

But that was a great visitation experienced by Korea. You know the biggest gospel meetings in the world have been held in Seoul. Billy Graham spoke to over a million there. Two summers ago, there were two and a half million people meeting on an airfield.

So many attending, they had to ask the Korean army to help them feed the crowd. Korea is bursting into the city. It has had several recessions and several years of revival. But you can trace the growth of the church in Korea back to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which came really in three stages.

1903 was the prayer movement. 1905, a great in-gathering of heathen. 1907, the cleansing of the church. By the way, in 1910 there was a recession. You say, why? A missionary came back from the States with a wonderful idea, let's try and win one million souls to Christ.

It was called the million souls movement. They divided up the country and said, now you Methodists in this province, you win 200 ,000. The Presbyterians in this province, you aim for 300 ,000. Over here, a quarter of a million, and they divided up the country.

They had Chapman and Alexander come and start the crusade for them. The total number of decisions was 15 ,000 some. Thank God for 15 ,000 some. But if you're aiming for a million, it's a bitter disappointment.

It seemed as if the Holy Spirit would not give up his prerogative to a committee, or to an organization. And there was a recession for several years. I use this story from Korea to illustrate my text.

The Need for Revival in a Wicked Generation

What we need today is the overwhelming, convicting power of the Holy Spirit. We live in a wicked generation. When I think of 1950, just think of 30 years ago, what Martin Marty called the revival of the Eisenhower years.

Do you remember when the top of the hit parade was a song called It Is No Secret What God Can Do? A popular film was A Man Called Peter. And then look at conditions today, with the gross immorality, the profanity, the pornography, the crime.

Just as I left Los Angeles, they condemned the men who not only murdered a number of young women, but committed abominable acts upon their dead bodies. What kind of a world are we living in? The churches seem to be helpless in the face of this.

It's time for God to work. Therefore, it's time for us to pray. I quoted Finney saying, Revival is nothing more than the right use of the appropriate means. Do we have appropriate means? Everyone has a plan to do something in church growth, or evangelism explosion, or something.

All these techniques are good. But the country's not being reached. I've been asked by my charismatic friends, do you think the charismatic renewal is the great revival of today? It hasn't reached the people yet.

It may have deepened the life of so many Christians, especially in the historic denominations, but the world is still ungodly. When you think of what has happened in the greater ratings of the past, it is time for God to work.

Therefore, it's time for us to pray. You may say, can we do anything? Yes. We can pray. But in order to pray, we have to plead the promises of God. There are so many here. I will pour out water upon him that is thirsty.

I'll pour out floods on the dry ground. We'll plead the promises of God. That's the secret. Therefore, you have to have vision. Evan Roberts, whom God knew so mightily in the Welsh Revival, told me once, always pray for vision to match your faith.

When I came to the United States first in 1935, nearly everyone believed that Mussolini was the Antichrist. Do any of you remember that? Any of you older folks? Mussolini was the Antichrist. By the way, somebody asked me if Kissinger wasn't the Antichrist.

I said, certainly not. Well, why not? Well, it says Antichrist would have no regard for women. He certainly admires the opposite sex. So I... But isn't it funny how they're always bringing some Antichrist forward or saying he's alive right now, he's going to be somebody here or there.

But in those days, it was taught that revival was impossible in our day. That was a common teaching in days of discouragement. Well, you've got to have vision. I believe that while we have the Spirit of God, the Word of God, and the people of God, we may enjoy revival.

But it's up to God to choose the time. And one thing we can do is to pray. It puts us right in his will. Now, this isn't an easy subject to preach. I find it so new to some. So I'm going to suggest just five minutes for questions on the subject.

If you have a question dealing with the subject, just raise your hand, get my attention, state your question. If I know the answer, I'll give it. If I don't, it will help me to try and find out what it is.

Is there any question you want to ask on this subject? Yes. Sentence results in conviction. Conviction produces confession, restitution, reconciliation, and outreach. Any other question? Thank you. Regarding visible unity.

Unity Among Christians in Revival

As I study the revivals, for instance, the greatest revival this country ever experienced was 1858. And you find Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, every denomination working together, just like the good morale we had in this country during World War II, speaking in a military sense, to find a perfect unity.