Revival — J. Wesley Adcock

The Laodicean Church and the Need for Revival

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches, and unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write. These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.

I counsel thee to buy of me gold, tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear. I wish I knew how to help the people believe there is shame connected with nakedness these days.

Man's approval of it, God so displeased with it, and declares there to be shame connected with it. And anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see. Then over in the 85th psalm, I want to read some verses.

Notice if you will, in the first few verses of this psalm, the acknowledgment that the psalmist is making. I think you may observe two in each of the first few verses of God's blessing and goodness. That's one secret of getting further help, we may well remember.

Lord, thou hast been favorable unto thy land. Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people. Thou hast covered all their sin, taken away all thy wrath. Thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger.

Turn us, O God, of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease. Wilt thou be anger with us forever? Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee?

Reading down through verse 6, would you please stand for prayer? A revival in its very many times, but it has some rich truths relative to this wonderful experience of a revival. In Psalm 138, verse 7, we have the rich statement, Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me.

In Psalm 85, 6, the pronoun is plural instead of singular, and the plea is, Wilt thou not revive us, O Lord, that thy people may rejoice in thee? In Habakkuk 3 -2, we read, O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, make known, and in wrath remember mercy.

Personal Revival Before Corporate Revival

Surely the beginning for a revival is with the personal pronoun. Revive me, not the other fellow, but me. And notice that the psalmist had enough faith to believe for personal revival. He said, Thou wilt revive me.

And then, when the individual gets revived, he is so desirous that others shall have the benefit of it, and he is ready to join the pleading crowd that the Lord will pluralize the pronoun and make it us instead of me.

But me is the beginning, and then if I get revived, and if I can make a contribution toward the pluralizing of the pronoun until we together are revived, it won't be too difficult to have the work of the living God revived.

So I am interested in the threefold aspect of a revival, getting in on it myself, having others to have the benefit of it, and having the two to result in the reviving of the work of God. It is very evident to me that many, many meetings are nothing more than protracted meetings though they be announced as revivals.

It seems reasonable to me, or us, to ask ourselves the simple question, why are there no more revivals even among the wholeness folks than there are? Make it more specific. Why is there such a lack of personal recognition of revival in the home church from whence you and you and I have come, even assembled here this morning, why?

And I am persuaded that the Lord gave me three reasons why we do not have Holy Ghost revivals. I want to share them with you this morning, as I prayed it seemed that this was what the Lord would have me bring to you.

Failure to Recognize the Need for Revival

The first reason for our not having real Holy Ghost revivals, beyond those that we do have, I am glad for all of the exceptions, wherever they may be, I am glad for all of the exceptions, but many, many a meeting is nothing more than a protracted meeting though it be announced as a revival.

Why is that? And the first reason, I declare, may seem a bit startling to you, but it is very true, I am altogether convinced, and that first fact for our not having more Holy Ghost revivals is because there are too many people, preachers and lay members, who do not realize they need a revival.

I wish I could say that word realize until it would say everything I mean when I use it here. I certainly do not mean that the people go through the motion of having a meeting. I do not mean that they don't sometimes say, well, it would be good if we had a revival over our church.

I don't mean that. I mean a keen inner consciousness of the desperateness of the need of a revival. In fact, I am fully convinced that it is impossible for the one that is trying to speak to you now to realize the need of a revival.

I am persuaded that my dear brother French, as precious as he is in my estimation, is unable to realize the need of a revival, and that none of the preachers here can realize the need of a revival, and none of you lay members can realize the need of a revival as the Holy Ghost does help me, or help him, or help you.

We need the Holy Spirit to help us to have a keen inner consciousness that we don't just need, we desperately need a Holy Ghost revival. Maybe what I am trying to say to you with this word realized could be illustrated and made clearer.

Some time ago I understood a certain woman came to her pastor and expressed a desire that they might have a revival in their church, and the pastor paid little or no attention and they didn't have a revival.

The same woman came back some time later and expressed further a desire that they might have a revival in the church. But the pastor did little or nothing about it and no revival was had. And some time later the same woman came back, but she had a different message this time.

She declared, I feel as though I'll die if we don't have a revival. Well, you don't have to ask. The reason they had one was somebody realized they wanted you to notice that the presented to a Laodicean church.

Living in the Laodicean church age, it ought to have particulars. Here notice, if you will, that these Laodiceans estimated themselves. They made a self-evaluation and it was pretty bright. They declared that they were rich in need of nothing.

Brother, that's a way, a way up there where I never have gotten yet. I never have gotten to the place where I didn't have any need. If you have, I want you to tell me how you got there. I'd like to, I'd like to, I'd like to mount up and to grow and to find higher planes.

I want to make spiritual progress to the glory and the praise of God. But here they were declaring that they had need of nothing. That is one of the tragedies of our day. Over there at that church and over there at that church and out there at that other church, there is a lack of a conscious knowledge of need, of spiritual need.

In fact, if you, if you want to know how churches are getting along, I tell you what you do. You just make a little survey. Go ask the pastor or ask some of the lay members, how's your church getting along?

And see if you don't get an answer something to this effect. Well, it's getting along pretty well. We had a 30 gain in Sunday school last year. And we have the parsonage debt liquidated and the church is paid off and we raised the pastor's salary.

Now, if you don't believe that, go try it yourself and see. Let the devil lie on the preacher and try to distort the truth. Let me say this. There isn't a Sunday school anywhere that I know of, but what should have had more than they did have.

I was in one some time ago where the register showed over 700 for that day, but they should have had more. And it certainly is good if the church debt is liquidated and it is good if the parsonage is paid off.

And it is commendable if the pastor is so taken care of that he can devote his time and energy to the cause of the Lord and doesn't have to hang wallpaper and do something else and use up his time and energy there.

But, but, if, if that's the only measuring stick that you're using to find out how the Pilgrim or the Westland or the Nazarene or the Free or any other church is getting along, you have a mighty poor measuring stick.

If you really want to know how the church is getting along, ask yourself questions like these. How long has it been since God came? Until God came in such a way that the saints were blessed and the sinners were convicted.

How long has it been since there were some groans in the meeting house? Groans for souls. How long has it been since there were individuals called of God right out of your midst to the mission field or to the pastor?

Now, if you can give a positive, honest answer, an honest, positive answer to those kind of questions, you have, you have reason for deep, heartfelt gratitude to God that he's doing something in your midst.

Numbers of people, even in wholeness circles, are, are carrying on religiously and could continue to carry on religiously as they now are if the Holy Ghost were to lead the world. You don't have to have the Holy Ghost to help you to increase the numbers or increase the dollars.

But, brother, you have to have the Holy Ghost for there to be real Holy Ghost demonstration in the meeting. You have to have the blessed Holy Ghost if there's real, genuine conviction in the meeting. You have to have the third person of the Godhead moving in your midst if you want individuals to be called of God.

Somebody has to be moved upon by the Spirit of God if they're called of the living God. Oh, the Lord, stir our hearts and help us to see that we desperately need Holy Ghost revival meetings in these days.

I say different people don't realize they need revivals, but I know we do. I know we do because of sin that is trebling on every hand. When I see the Sabbath desecration with, with laundromats overflowing out there on the Lord's Day, with people out there doing their washing on the Lord's Day, and individuals mowing their lawn and, and building their house, and individuals running to the grocery store, and individuals running to the same factory jobs on the Lord's Day that they do other days of the week, and other means of desecrating God's Holy Day, I know we need God the Holy Ghost to come and make sin seem exceeding simple, and individuals get sin sick until they'll seek after the living God.

When I see all of the gambling that is prevalent, it tells me we need a Holy Ghost revival. When I see how immoral and base and degenerate and vile and wicked and unclean individuals are, again and again with the opposite sex, and then again and again with their own sex, it tells me that we need God the Holy Ghost to come and make sin seem black and hell-hot, and the judgments of God a reality, and the love of God rich until people will have its benefits through the mirth of the blood of his Son.

When I see, when I see all of the near nudity that is prevalent among men and women and teenagers, it tells me that we need a divine visitation and a Holy Ghost revival meeting. But not only do these conditions outside, out there, testify to the fact that we need a revival, but I know we need a revival because of a lack of love right among the professed followers of God.

Some time ago, I was in Holmes Avenue, Freemason's Church in Indianapolis. God came and gave us a revival. Three different services. I didn't need to preach at all. The Holy Ghost just moved in and took over.

And we didn't have that because Adcock was there. I know we didn't, because I'd been different places and didn't see much accomplished. But I could tell you one of the reasons why we had it. I know one reason.

I don't know, I don't know when I've been in anybody's church where I detected as much love among the people as I did. And the lack of love tells me we need God to come. And the lack of burden for lost souls tells me that we need a divine visitation, even a Holy Ghost revival.

Yes, in spite of the fact that multitudes do not realize that it is needed, the conditions around about us in the world tell us that we do need a revival. And conditions in the Church testify the same kind of fact.

Reluctance to Welcome Holy Ghost Revival

But there's another reason why we don't have more Holy Ghost revivals, and that is because there are too many people, preachers and lay members, who actually do not want revivals. Did you hear what I said?

I said what I meant. And surely somebody feels now like saying, Preacher, I know you're off of a beam. You mean, you mean to tell us, Preacher, that there are preachers and lay members that do not want revivals?

That's exactly the truth. Oh, different people would be willing to have some religious entertainment and a display of talent, but they don't want a Holy Ghost revival. Preacher, why do you say that? I say that because it is true, and I declare it is true on at least two outstanding counts.

One reason why people don't want a Holy Ghost revival meeting is they're afraid they would lose their religious job. I was in a wholeness church in Illinois some time ago, and the Holy Spirit moved in our midst in a gracious way on a Friday night.

The pastor turned the service over to me, and there was so much conviction I didn't need to preach at all. I gave the altar call, and numbers were at the altar. After there was shouting and rejoicing and victories, then convictions still lingered, I gave the second altar call.

I didn't need to preach. We had two altar services, two or three seasons of shouting and rejoicing, and got out about 10, 15 that night. God moved in our midst. But do you suppose everybody was jubilant over what God was doing?

Oh, no, not everybody. Somebody came to the pastor. He didn't accuse him of failing to preach against wholeness. He didn't say, you haven't preached on wholeness. He didn't say, you're a compromiser. But what he did say was, you're going to split the church.

What preacher? Oh, getting in some men and new people here, and these older folk are going to lose their job, and you're going to split the church. Brother, they ought to have been shouting, rejoicing, happy that God Almighty was adding to the number.

The church in southern Indiana, going on eight years, and in that time the Lord met us graciously on one occasion and another. And He gave us some good victories. A sister loveless, a mother of four children who had never been saved 30 or so years of age, got a wonderful experience, and then came back to get sanctified.

And to see the shine on her face and to hear the ring in her testimony would surely help you to say, well, anybody with an individual like that in their church is blessed of the Lord. And then her husband got a wonderful experience of salvation after quite a fight against God, and his wife are the Lord's cause.

And then he was put on the official board, and one of my men stopped coming to the church. I went over to see why. He didn't say I wasn't preaching the truth. He didn't accuse me of being a compromiser, but he seemed to think somebody hadn't had it fair.

You'll hear this young fellow being put on the official board. Brother, they ought to have been shouting, rejoicing, happy that God Almighty was helping us and giving us some new recruits. But somebody doesn't want a Holy Ghost revival meeting.

They might not get to be the church boss and the bell sheep and the ringleader anymore. Somebody doesn't want a Holy Ghost revival meeting. They might not get to be the superintendent where they've been for 14 years in a row.

They might elect somebody else. Somebody doesn't want a Holy Ghost revival meeting. They're afraid they wouldn't get to teach that particular Sunday school class that they seem to think nobody else can teach if they weren't there.

Wait a minute. There's another reason why people don't want Holy Ghost revival meetings, and that is because they know enough about a Holy Ghost revival meeting to know that when the Holy Ghost comes, He uncovers sin and locates sin and makes individuals to see themselves as they are.

And some people have covered up and professed over and compromised so long that they don't propose for daughter and man to uncover. Rather, when the Holy Ghost comes, He may locate a daughter right in the midst of the holiness meeting.

And when the Holy Ghost comes, He may uncover hatred and malice and grudges that have been covered up for 13 years. When the Holy Ghost comes, brother, He locates sin. And some people know enough about Holy Ghost revival meetings to know that, and they don't propose to be uncovered.

They don't want a Holy Ghost revival. And some people don't want a Holy Ghost revival meeting if they had it, if they couldn't carry out their little dead, dry, human-made program like that. Well, you don't get the Holy Spirit to operate in your little straitjacket or mine, brother, if you want Him to come and to have free right of way.

You'll need to be sure that you don't try to circumscribe and prescribe all the details of His coming and moving. Are you keeping up? Well, there's another reason why we don't have more revivals. There's another reason.

The Price of Revival: Confession and Obedience

I'm convinced the Lord gave me these riding down the highway in a car. I never read them in anybody's book, but He so burned them on my heart. The third reason why we don't have more Holy Ghost revival meetings is because too many people are not willing to pay the may in some measure realize that they need them.

In some small measure or to some minor degree, they may desire them, and still they don't have them, and they don't have them because they're not willing to pay the price to get them. I believe if somebody could exhaust those three, they could cover the whole scope of the problem of our not having revivals.

But, Peter, what do you mean by the price of a revival? Well, I don't know enough to know what all is included, but I know some things that are included in the price of a revival, and the very head of the list is confession.

As years of experience increase, I have been made more and more conscious of the fact that if we have a real revival, there'll have to be some confession. And again and again, it needs to start with the best of God's people.

Confessing, confessing. Some people ought never to get up in the meeting house and make some confession. They ought not to make them in the meeting house. They ought to make them in the fence corner, or in the hayloft, or in the corn crib, or down in the basement, or in the bedroom, somewhere along with God.

But wait a minute, look at the other side. Some people can confess in every fence corner on the farm, and in the hayloft, and the corn crib, and in the basement, and the upstairs, and it never will be fixed up until they got right up in the meeting house and confessed.

For it involves people there, and they need to make it publicly, and give us individuals that will make all of the secret confessions they need to make, and all of the public confessions that they need to make.

And you won't have to wonder whether or not God will come, brother. He'll be there. I was in Muncie, Indiana some time ago in a meeting of the First Children's Wholeness Church, and the Lord gave us a gracious revival.

I understood they hadn't had anything like it for 20 years or so, and I repeat myself and say it was not because I was there. I know it wasn't, because I've been different places and didn't see much accomplished.

But I could tell you one reason why we had it. It was because there was so much confessing done. Brother, if we have all the confessing done around here that God sees needs to be done, you won't have to wonder whether we'll have a Holy Ghost revival or not.

God will give us it. Why do you need to confess? Well, some people need to confess their sins, their actual sins, their outbroken sins. Some people need to confess their sins of omission. Some people need to confess their sins of commission.

Some people need to confess their lukewarms. I was in a meeting at Logan's Fort, Indiana some time ago, and the Holy Ghost came on a Sunday morning until I didn't do any preaching. The singer didn't sing any special numbers, and they didn't take any offerings that morning.

The Holy Spirit moved in such a marvelous way. I never did know how many people got to God, but one of the things that was outstanding to me was the fact that over to my left, a woman got up right up at the front and confessed her lukewarmness.

And when she began to confess out her lukewarmness and make her confession, her teenage daughter from way back on the other side got out and came. We could see some more people step out and come if we could have some people confess their lukewarmness.

Some people need to confess their indifference, and some people need to confess their cold heart, and some people need to confess one thing, and some people need to confess another. The Lord help me and help you to do all the confessing that we need to do to have God come as He wants to come and as we need to have Him come.

And then a second part of the price of a revival is obedience. Obedience. Oh, no wonder God doesn't do any more for us than He does when you see how individuals are disobedient. We need obedience to the Word of the Living God.

We need obedience to what God says. Look over there at that man down on his knees, praying and pretending that he wants a revival meeting. And the Holy Ghost reminds him that over here in Ephesians, the fourth chapter and the third verse, that he's to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit, and watch him as he talks back to God by actions, if not by words, and says, Oh, yes, Lord, I know that's in there, but I'm not about to do it.

You know I'm not doing a thing to help the unity of the Spirit. In fact, Lord, I've been sowing discord and trying to get this one out with that one and hinder the cause. No wonder God doesn't do any more for us than He does.

Look at that woman over there on her knees, playing like she wants a revival, pretending to pray for a revival, and the Holy Ghost reminds her of Ephesians 4 and 32, Be ye kind one to another. Oh, yes, Lord, I know that's in there, but you know how far from being kind I was to my husband before he left for work this morning.

And furthermore, Lord, I'm not about to be kind. I'm going to have my own way about it. Oh, I'll pretend I want a revival. Brother, no wonder God doesn't move any more than He does when individuals read, thus saith the living God, and go right out and do nothing about putting it into practice.

If we'll obey God, He'll move in our midst. He'll manifest. Look at that woman over there on her knees, playing like she wants a revival, pretending to pray for a revival meeting, and with her blue jeans and her paddle pushers and her, written over here in Deuteronomy 22 and 5, a woman shall not wear that which pertains unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment.

Lord, I know it's in there, but I'm not about to do anything about it. I'll pretend I want a revival. Brother, no wonder God doesn't do any more for us than He does. If we could get everybody on this side and everybody down through there and everybody on this side and everybody here to fully obey what God says, brother, you wouldn't have to wonder whether God would move in our midst or Holy Ghost revival would be forthcoming, and we could convince the gainsaying world that God still lives and revival fires still burn, and that the Most High God is still making saints out of sinners in these days as much as in the gospel years.

Bless His name forever. We need obedience to the word. We need obedience to the Holy Ghost. It wouldn't do the Holy Ghost one bit of good to tell some people on either side, some people right here in this meeting house, to raise their hand when they're singing Amazing Grace.

Why, no, I'm not about to. You think I'm going to make a fool out of myself? Nobody else is, or everybody else is not doing such. Do you know how to get the victor over the devil? If the devil sticks on you while the Lord says raise your hand, do you know how to get the victor over him?

Just put up both of them. Trying to tell us that so little a thing as raising your hand would do any good toward having God come, it will if that's what the Holy Ghost is telling you to do. Amanda Smith, that colored woman evangelist, was in White Folk meeting and the Spirit prompted her to raise her hand, and she didn't do it.

And the Spirit further prompted her, and finally that black hand went up. When that black hand went up, the glory of God came down. Oh, the Lord gave us some individuals that will stay on their knees all the time.

My co-laborers preach if the Lord tells them to do that, or run the aisles if that's what the Holy Ghost tells them to do, or keep still if that's what the Holy Ghost tells them to do. Anything the Holy Ghost says is in order.

If you never heard of anybody doing it, it's all right if he said do it, go right ahead. I heard of a strange practice. I never heard tell of anybody else doing it in all the years of church history, but when they had the great Welsh revival, they had some people stationed outside the door, and they would ask the people who came, will you obey the Lord if we'll let you in?

And if they wouldn't agree to obey the Lord, they wouldn't let them in. They would station somebody out beside these doors and ask if everybody would obey the Lord if we'd let them come in, and not let a one in that wouldn't come in.

Prayer, Good Works, and Faith in Revival

But I know one thing, we'd have more of God than we do if every last individual would do anything and everything the Holy Ghost said do when they got in to meet him. Third part of the price of a revival is prayer, prayer, prayer.

Notice I didn't put prayer first here. You know, some people can't do a very good job praying. They haven't done all the confessing they ought to do. And some people can't do a very good job praying. They haven't done all the obeying they should.

But brother, if you confess enough, so where the smile of God can rest upon that minute you will obey in obedience to the word of the Holy Ghost, you can get up there somewhere where prayer will begin to take hold, and you can have an audience with the living God.

Bless his name forever. And it's still written in the book, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord. In getting drunk? No. In murdering? You are best people. I wonder how many sinners we have down through here on that campus, or over here in God's sight on that.

Then if we want a revival, there's something else we'll need to do, and that is we will need to have some good work. There's something to do. Somebody needs to be invited. Cracks need to be passed. An extra prayer meeting needs to be had.

Some fasting needs to be done. There's something to be done besides being thumb twiddlers and benchwarmers and join the do-nothing crowd. The same Bible, the same second chapter of Ephesians that says that we are saved by grace through faith and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast, didn't stop there.

He said, for we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. And then if we're going to have revival, there's one other thing to do, and that is to believe God.

And if we will confess as much as we ought, and if we will obey in obedience to the word of the Holy Ghost, and if we will pray as we ought and work as we ought, we can get up here somewhere where faith operates, and we can get the assurance.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. I was in a meeting out from Hanover, Pennsylvania. I was praying in the hay now, and the Lord grew near and helped my heart in prayer. The congregation was small, at least a part of the time.

Once I had three or four to preach to besides the ones that came from the preacher's house. And this particular day I had prayed until I'd gotten some soul help in prayer and stepped out of the door to go on my way to meeting, and the Holy Ghost impressed upon me the need of oppressing my claims.

And I stepped back into the hay now, and the Spirit grew near and helped my heart in prayer until I got clear through, all the way through, not just to have my soul blessed, but I got through until I got assurance.

I knew we were going to have victories before I left the hay now. Oh, I don't just mean I got blessed, I mean I got the assurance. The Holy Ghost gave me the assurance. And did anything happen, preacher?

Of course something happened. God came. The crowd increased. We had a number at the altar. The Lord graciously moved. I think one's in the congregation now that was at the altar that night. Oh, the Lord helped us.

The Call to Realize, Desire, and Pursue Revival

Did you hear my text in Psalm 85 and 86, Wilt thou not revive us again? Did you hear God's answer? Yes, I will, if you realize you need it, and if you really desire it, and if you will pay the full price to get it.

It's up to you and to me as to whether we will or will not have a revival spirit in the camp meeting. If we don't have, we might as well to go home and let this be the last service. But God has already kindled the fire and he wants to add fuel to it and to increase what he has started for us.

Bless his name forever.