(Revival) Highlights of Past Revivals - Part 2 — Michael L. Brown

Revival Exposes the Corruption of Prosperity Religion

All of the materialism, all of the getting rich on the gospel mentality has nothing to do with the revelation of the righteousness of God and is devoid of it. When the revelation of God's righteousness comes in, all the corruption, you know what you do?

You do the same thing that Jesus did. You go into the temple of God and destroy those things that are just out to make a buck. I read to you in the first class about the moving of God in 1857 on children in Ulster and how God just supernaturally swept down.

The Supernatural Revival in Wales

Well, in 1904 in Wales, the revival under Evan Roberts that we mentioned, there were also supernatural sweepings, movings of God. You know, at other times there are accounts of ships coming to a port and as they got near a port, everybody on the boat getting saved.

There was a divine influence. There was so much prayer going up. The angels of God were there. But something just clicked and all of a sudden people started getting saved all over the place. Well, Evan Roberts had prayed.

He saw a vision of hell. He got an overwhelming vision of hell. He had prayed for about 12 or 13 years continually, just as a boy growing up for God to send revival to Wales. But he had seen an incredible vision of hell and of people falling through that door and being lost forever.

And he prayed. He prayed that God would give one year, that he would spare people sinking down to hell for one year, kind of just stop it and give everybody in the country a supernatural opportunity to be saved.

And within that first year's revival, 100 ,000 people in Wales were born again with no organization, no one group or church taking credit for it. And Evan Roberts just participating, just going from meeting to meeting, but not being the central person because it was happening all over the place.

Let me read you a description as Frank Bartleman describes what was taking place in Wales. And there are many, many, many descriptions. An English eyewitness of the revival in Wales wrote, Such real travail of soul for the unsaved I have never before witnessed.

I have seen young Evan Roberts convulsed with grief and calling on his audience to pray. Don't sing, he would exclaim. It's too terrible to sing. This was known as the singing revival. When they asked him, could it come to England, he said, could you sing?

But here, you know, the power of God, the conviction would be too great to don't sing. And a little quote from Bartleman, conviction has often been lifted from the people by too much singing. A revivalist in Wales in the previous century, in the late 1800s, named Richard Owens, would not close the meetings with a hymn because he felt it lessened the conviction that the word left.

But we like to leave people feeling happy and up and devoid of all conviction. Well, that's what we do. You know, the word comes forth and people are struck by it. And then we have to change pace so they don't get too heavy and weighed down and serious.

They may actually go out and change if they do. Another writer declared it was not the eloquence of Evan Roberts that broke men down, but his tears. He would break down, crying bitterly for God to bend them in an agony of prayer.

The tears coursing down his cheeks, his whole frame writhing. Strong men would break down and cry like children. Women would shriek. A sound of weeping and wailing would fill the air. Evan Roberts and the intensity of his agony would fall in the pulpit, while many in the crowd often fainted.

Revival, Emotion, and the Recovery of Truth

Now, some have said, well, it was a very emotional revival. Well, it was. It was not characterized by emotionalism. In other words, it was not worked up in the flesh or driven on by human frenzy. But there was a lot of outbreak of emotion in the midst of it.

And that's perfectly appropriate and right and understandable. Just take this one element. Revival brings back truth. Revival brings us into a clear picture of things. If there's anything that we are deficient in, in terms of understanding, it is our recognition of eternity.

Yes, God's concerned with this world. Yes, God wants to bless us in this world and take care of us. But we have almost no revelation. And I say those words with premeditation, not just off the cuff. We have almost no revelation of eternity.

We have almost no revelation of hell. I mean, when I've prayed for revelation of hell, I pray carefully. I say, God, give me the burden that I'm able to handle. Because if we could actually recognize for a moment that right now, as we're talking, people are being lost forever, we would collapse under the weight of it.

We'd have a nervous breakdown. We'd go crazy. Or we'd just drop dead from the stress of it. And what we've done, we know it's good to witness to people. We know we're supposed to witness to people. We know it's good to share with people.

We know God wants us to. We know they can have a better life. We feel somehow obligated to. We know it'll help our spirituality if we do. That's the one that really gets us going. It'll bless us if we do.

That's our great motivator. But I mean, seriously, think about it. When have you ever heard a message on hell? When's the last time you heard a message on hell that had you shaking in your seat because people were going there?

And that's where we would have gone without God. Have you ever had something happen? You almost got killed or someone close to you almost got killed or something terrible almost happened. And, you know, the fear was so great, trying to grip you.

You know, so-and-so's going to drown or this or that. And the fear tried to grip you and take over. Thank God nothing happened. Well, you can think back to it and still feel that lying spirit of fear trying to attack.

You know, that could have been me. I could have been lost. I could have been dead. Or my brother or sister could have died. And you still feel the reality of how close it came. Well, there's something about hell.

I don't know if we even realize the reality of the fact we were ransomed from it, rescued from it. We could have been lost forever. When Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, which brought about the so-called First Great Awakening, you say, I thought it happened spontaneously.

It did. Almost everybody in the congregation was unsaved. Nobody was expecting this or touting this. The big revival meetings were about to break. He was just coming to bring the sermon that Sunday because he was so nearsighted he had to hold the manuscript close to him as he read his sermons monotone.

No flesh can glory in that. And as he preached about Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, even if we wouldn't preach it exactly the same way today, as he preached that message, people unconsciously began to grip onto the seats and the pews because they felt that they were at any moment going to slip into hell.

When he talked about sinners dangling over the precipice and they could be gone at any moment, people began to shriek and grab hold of the pillars of the building and cry out to God. And that's how the First Great Awakening in this country began in the 1700s.

Eternal Reality and Serious Christian Conviction

That reality that gripped Evan Roberts was the thing that fueled, one of the key things that fueled the revival, the reality of heaven and hell. That alone will cause us to get up and leave everything and do something for God.

And that alone will show how much our society really is secular and materialistic and this world oriented. You know, you look at the fanatical Iranians and how, I mean, with Khomeini's death, several people killed in the crush of people running to get near his coffin.

And the fanaticism of their hatred for the United States and all these other things. And it's crazy, it's wild. But the reason it really stands out is because most of the rest of the world is so secular that we expect more normal behavior from them.

No, it's plain fanaticism, it's demonic, there's nothing of God in it. But there is a reality of the religious life to them, which is the way we're supposed to be. In other words, we're supposed to take our faith as seriously as they take theirs, not with demonic frenzy and fanaticism, but just as seriously.

They are absolutely, totally sure that they are serving Allah and that the rest of the nations that oppose it are satanic. I mean, that's how they're living their whole lives and they're changing their whole society.

And they've paid with tons and tons of blood for it. But that's just a regular religious attitude, regular religious behavior by people who take their religion seriously. Again, not the blood, the frenzy, the demonic part, but the intensity of conviction.

Revival Reports from China

Well, what about some other nations of the world? Things are happening in China. It's said that in the three-week period in China, more people are getting saved than in the entire history of the Book of Acts.

Stories are commonplace, like one about this girl who was riding on her bicycle and a guy jumped out of the road and tried to rape her. And I don't know if she preached or rebuked him, I forget that element, but he just froze exactly where he was, couldn't move, froze.

And she drove into town on her bicycle, got other people from her town who were believers, went back and he was still there frozen. And they led him to the Lord, he repented, and just revival broke out in the town.

You know, you're talking in historic periods of time in different nations, revival breaking to the point that whole towns, whole communities, whole cities turn and repent and get right with God. There's an account in India, the turn of this century, that Bartleman records at a girl's home.

Heavenly Visions and Outpourings in India

About twenty girls went into a trance at one time and became unconscious of this world for hours, some for three or four days. During that time they sang, prayed, clapped their hands, rolled about or sat still.

When they became conscious, they told of seeing a throne in heaven, a white robe throng and a glory so bright they could not bear it. Soon the whole place was aflame, school had to be suspended, they forgot to eat or sleep and whole nights and days were absorbed in prayer.

The spirit was poured out upon one of the seeking girls in the night. Her companion sleeping next to her awoke and seeing fire envelop her, ran across the dormitory and brought a pail of water to dash upon her.

In less than an hour, nearly all the girls in the compound were weeping, praying and confessing their sins. Many of these girls were invested with a strange, beautiful and supernatural fire. And again, as I'm sharing a lot of these accounts tonight, just another from Prattney, beginning on page 176.

Here another girl's home, this was for young prostitutes that they'd taken in and were ministering to. And here's how it's described. It was so starving and dreadful, I can use no other word, that details escape me.

Soon the whole upper half of the church was on its face on the floor crying to God. Each boy and girl, man and woman, oblivious of all others. The sound was like the sound of waves or strong wind in the trees.

Their hurricane of prayer continued for over four hours. They passed like four minutes. For the next two weeks, they gave themselves to the word and prayer, counseling around the clock. Almost the whole compound got saved.

It deeply affected the village. And then over onto the next page, great outpouring in Asia. During Christian instruction by George and Sarah Boardman, Judson, Adonai Judson's helpers, the Karen seemed spiritually dense until they began to teach him about the Bible.

This is a tribe's person called the Karen. And he and his people claim to worship you are the true God, however it was pronounced. See, there's this remnant of the recognition of the true God of Israel among peoples and nations from all over.

Obviously, from the time after the flood, as human knowledge and the reality of God spread, there was this loss in culture. So they began to talk about the Bible. And all of a sudden, this guy's eyes began to be open.

Astonishingly, the Karen recognized the legendary lost book. Telling about his own people's unknown God, you are, which he believed had arrived in Burma. Full of excitement and destiny, the Karen became a prophetic evangelist and eventually entire Karen villages would respond to his ministry.

By 1858, there were tens of thousands of Karen Christians, all missionary minded. They went in turn to their neighbors, the coaching. And within the next century, some 250 ,000 coaching were converted.

Indigenous Missions and Perseverance in Spiritual Warfare

Ralph Mahoney shares that when he was over, I believe it was in Malaysia. He was sharing they were having a indigenous missions training conference. In other words, the native leaders in the different countries were being trained and equipped for spiritual warfare and ministry.

And they would go out and not see the people again for a couple of years. Then they'd come back and have another one of these conferences. I believe it was Malaysia, the specific country doesn't really matter.

But he shared that he had come back two years later and one man came to him with a massive problem. He was equipped and trained in the spiritual warfare, spiritual equipping leader seminar. And then went deep, deep, deep into the bush where it would take hours and hours and hours.

First driving and then walking and climbing into the jungle areas of his country. And he went in and for nine months went into towns and preached to the Muslim villagers every day about Jesus. And town after town put him out, put him out, put him out.

He slept many nights in the jungle with wild animals, but would not turn back. He knew he wasn't defeated until he acknowledged defeat. Finally, after nine months, an old Muslim man received the Lord.

And the only thing this fellow knew was the way he was baptized. Someone just poured water over him. So he took like a coconut as the only liquid that they had and broke the thing open and poured it over the guy.

And the guy is as the as the juice just went over him, began to speak in tongues. And that began the pattern that broke when he saw Ralph Mahoney. There were something around 20 ,000 people. I think the figure is higher, but I don't want to exaggerate about 20 ,000 people.

And that subsequent almost year and a half of ministry had come to the Lord through his preaching. The thing just snapped nine months by himself being an outcast for the gospel, sleeping in the jungle with wild animals.

Preaching, not turning back, declaring the simple message. Things finally broke. He was getting hundreds and hundreds saved every single week. And he said, I don't know what to do with all the people.

That's revival. When that breaks, when the things begin to happen, when the reality of God bursts through, when we experience the things we've always read about and talked about. But our attitude here has to be first to examine where we are at right now.

Examining the Church and Seeking the Biblical Norm

What is the state of the body in our country? That's what we're responsible for. What is the state of our own congregation and assembly? What is the state of our own lives? We've got to look at that and we've got to see the biblical norm.

We've got to say, God, take the blinders off my eyes. Take anything off my eyes that's hindering my vision. I just want to see what your word says. I just want to see what your word says. What's reality?

Look at the patterns of great movings of God in the past. These are real things. It's often said if you weren't there, you never could have believed the things. They were so astonishing and so intense and so overwhelming.

If you weren't physically there, you would have said it's impossible when someone told you the accounts. Yet these are all things that God did. You say, how could it be? That shows how little we've experienced.

We've got to look at what God's done in the past. We've got to look at the current state and we've got to come to an absolute firm conclusion that we need a revival in our day and in our society. You say, well, is revival the norm?

Do you live in constant revival? No, revival gets you back to where you're supposed to be. And then you continue to build in the regular pattern. But more happens in revival than in all the years of labor otherwise.

Because at that point, the changing, the intensifying, the transforming is so great that there's no stopping it. You know, you could walk slowly for ten years. Or you could go at the speed of light for one second.

And you'll travel a whole lot more in one second. So revival is something we need to get us back to where we should be. It's not something we live in continually, because if you lived in it continually, you wouldn't need it.

Revival presupposes declension, as we often quote Finney's words. Revival presupposes things have died, things are out of order, things have been lost. They must be revived and restored and brought back.

So if you're walking in that, you do not need revival, but you must continue. And human nature is such that what we do is we have a high point and then we get lazy and complacent. And before we know it, the revival is just a story that we're talking about.

The good old days. And then before you know it, it's something that your grandfather talked about. And then before you know it, you're deceived into thinking that you're experiencing it when nothing's happening.

Praying for Revival in the Present Day

So we're going to look at some of the signs that revival is needed. And then some of the signs as to when a revival can be expected in the next classes. And then from there, we'll look at some of the specific elements that make revival.

The things to expect, the things that must take place in our lives, the things that we must do to see revival come in our days. And let's let the words of Habakkuk 3 .2 be our prayer, our heart desire.

Lord, we've heard of your fame. We stand in awe of your deeds. Renew them in our day. The Hebrews in the midst of years, in other words, just right here and now where we live. Renew them, make them known.

May there be a manifestation of the acts of God that we've heard about in our day and age. And wrath, because certainly the wrath of God is upon this country. Certainly, you've got to stop and even think of some of our great natural beauty beginning to get attacked.

The massive forest fires in the best known national park in the United States. What's happening? They never expected anything to go so big and so great as it did. Millions and millions of acres lost. And then one of the great frontiers of America, beautiful wildlife, the hugest oil spill in our history takes place over there.

You have to see what's going on. Our beautiful land is getting defiled. Scripture says that when all types of abominations are performed in a country, that the land itself vomits them out. There's certainly wrath and judgment.

But in the midst of that, God, remember mercy and pour out your spirit and send a revival. When I hear people say revival is here, we're in the midst of revival in the United States. I said, I know what they mean.

They're having a great service and they're all excited. They just got testimonies from 20 different groups of good things happening. But that ain't revival. There's a hunger, there's a cry, there's a stirring, there's a recognition.

We're on the right path. God's ready to move. But let's open our hearts. Let's get our vision set. And let's be vehicles and vessels of revival. Start in us. That's got to be our prayer. Lord, we thank you for your goodness.

We thank you for a revelation and for the opening of our hearts and minds. We pray that you would start a true revival in our hearts and lives. And that you would be glorified. In Jesus' name. Amen.