1
00:00:01,016 --> 00:00:17,757
Isaiah chapter 63 & 64.

2
00:00:17,757 --> 00:00:23,855
Isaiah 63 and we'll begin
reading with verse 15,

3
00:00:23,855 --> 00:00:31,829
"Look down from Heaven and see from
Your holy and glorious habitation;

4
00:00:31,829 --> 00:00:36,151
Where are Your zeal and Your mighty deeds?

5
00:00:36,151 --> 00:00:41,134
The stirrings of Your heart and Your
compassion are restrained toward me.

6
00:00:41,134 --> 00:00:43,560
For You are our Father,
though Abraham does

7
00:00:43,572 --> 00:00:46,121
not know us and Israel
does not recognize us.

8
00:00:46,121 --> 00:00:52,696
You, O LORD, are our Father, Our
Redeemer from of old is Your name.

9
00:00:52,696 --> 00:00:56,221
Why, O LORD, do You cause
us to stray from Your ways

10
00:00:56,221 --> 00:00:59,181
and harden our heart from fearing You?

11
00:00:59,181 --> 00:01:05,176
Return for the sake of Your servants,
the tribes of Your heritage.

12
00:01:05,177 --> 00:01:08,578
Your holy people possessed Your
sanctuary for a little while,

13
00:01:08,578 --> 00:01:11,840
our adversaries have trodden it down.

14
00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:15,733
We have become like those over
whom You have never ruled,

15
00:01:15,733 --> 00:01:19,317
like those who were not
called by Your name.

16
00:01:19,317 --> 00:01:24,208
Oh, that You would rend the
heavens and come down,

17
00:01:24,208 --> 00:01:28,495
that the mountains might
quake at Your presence –

18
00:01:28,495 --> 00:01:34,195
as fire kindles the brushwood,
as fire causes water to boil –

19
00:01:34,195 --> 00:01:38,154
to make Your name known
to Your adversaries, that

20
00:01:38,166 --> 00:01:41,820
the nations may tremble
at Your presence. (P)

21
00:01:41,820 --> 00:01:45,102
"When You did awesome things
which we did not expect,

22
00:01:45,102 --> 00:01:49,516
You came down, the mountains
quaked at Your presence.

23
00:01:49,516 --> 00:01:53,448
For from days of old they have
not heard nor perceived by ear,

24
00:01:53,448 --> 00:01:57,297
neither has the eye seen
a God besides You, who

25
00:01:57,309 --> 00:02:00,929
acts in behalf of the
one who waits for Him.

26
00:02:00,929 --> 00:02:03,512
You meet him who
rejoices in doing

27
00:02:03,524 --> 00:02:07,009
righteousness, who remembers
You in Your ways.

28
00:02:07,009 --> 00:02:09,304
Behold, You were angry, for we sinned,

29
00:02:09,304 --> 00:02:14,329
we continued in them a long
time; and shall we be saved?

30
00:02:14,329 --> 00:02:17,193
For all of us have become
like one who is unclean,

31
00:02:17,193 --> 00:02:20,877
and all our righteous deeds
are like a filthy garment;

32
00:02:20,877 --> 00:02:26,126
and all of us wither like a leaf, and our
iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

33
00:02:26,126 --> 00:02:33,357
There is no one who calls on Your name,
who arouses himself to take hold of You;

34
00:02:33,357 --> 00:02:36,955
for You have hidden Your
face from us and have

35
00:02:36,967 --> 00:02:40,962
delivered us into the power
of our iniquities." (P)

36
00:02:40,962 --> 00:02:45,653
The verses that I would like for
us to consider this evening

37
00:02:45,653 --> 00:02:51,866
are verses 1 to 4 of chapter 64,

38
00:02:51,866 --> 00:02:58,278
and they make up what is surely one of the
most glorious prayers in all of Scripture:

39
00:02:58,278 --> 00:03:04,185
"Oh, that Thou would rend
the heavens and come down,

40
00:03:04,185 --> 00:03:07,896
that the mountains
might quake, that the

41
00:03:07,908 --> 00:03:12,266
mountains might flow down
at Thy presence." (P)

42
00:03:12,266 --> 00:03:17,971
So I want to speak this evening, Lord
willing, on the subject of God Coming Down.

43
00:03:17,971 --> 00:03:20,292
And I've read a little bit
of the larger context

44
00:03:20,292 --> 00:03:24,607
just to give you a feel for the
original setting of this prayer.

45
00:03:24,607 --> 00:03:28,668
The prayer comes at a time
when Israel has sinned

46
00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:32,509
and is under the judgment
of God for its sins.

47
00:03:32,509 --> 00:03:40,791
And the prophet says in vs 7 that
God had hidden His face from them

48
00:03:40,791 --> 00:03:44,580
and had delivered them into the
power of their iniquities.

49
00:03:44,580 --> 00:03:48,226
Back in Isaiah 63:19, he says,

50
00:03:48,226 --> 00:03:52,003
"We have become like those over
whom Thou has never ruled,

51
00:03:52,003 --> 00:03:55,262
like those who were not
called by Thy Name." (P)

52
00:03:55,262 --> 00:03:59,723
So Isaiah cries out for
God to do, once again,

53
00:03:59,735 --> 00:04:04,493
what He has done in the
past of Israel's history.

54
00:04:04,493 --> 00:04:10,086
And he says in Isaiah 64:3,

55
00:04:10,086 --> 00:04:14,304
"When Thou didst awesome things
which we did not expect,

56
00:04:14,304 --> 00:04:17,546
Thou didst come down, the mountains
quaked at Thy presence."

57
00:04:17,546 --> 00:04:20,293
That was something that had happened.

58
00:04:20,295 --> 00:04:22,975
When did God do that? When
did He do awesome things?

59
00:04:22,975 --> 00:04:30,597
Well, surely one time was back when He took
the children of Israel out of Egypt –

60
00:04:30,597 --> 00:04:35,717
out from the power of Pharaoh
and the power of Egypt.

61
00:04:35,717 --> 00:04:38,313
He certainly did awesome
things during that time.

62
00:04:38,313 --> 00:04:45,765
The God of the Hebrews, through these
insignificant men (Moses and Aaron),

63
00:04:45,765 --> 00:04:49,702
came to the most powerful
man in the world

64
00:04:49,714 --> 00:04:53,846
at that time, with the
most powerful empire.

65
00:04:53,846 --> 00:04:57,086
And these two little men
stood there before him

66
00:04:57,086 --> 00:05:03,796
and said, "Thus says the God of
Israel, 'Let My people go.' "

67
00:05:03,797 --> 00:05:08,109
And so, God laid claim on these
people - "they're My people."

68
00:05:08,109 --> 00:05:11,818
Now think of this, saying this to
the most powerful man in the world:

69
00:05:11,818 --> 00:05:16,715
"They're My people; let them go,
that they might worship Me."

70
00:05:16,715 --> 00:05:23,096
And as the Scripture says, He did this
with a mighty arm and an outstretched hand.

71
00:05:23,096 --> 00:05:25,630
He did awesome things. (P)

72
00:05:25,630 --> 00:05:29,611
You know, Pharaoh's first response was,
"Who is this LORD? I don't know the LORD."

73
00:05:29,611 --> 00:05:33,210
Isn't that quite a statement?
"I don't know the LORD."

74
00:05:33,218 --> 00:05:38,534
Well, he didn't know the LORD, and he said,
"I'm not going to let the people go."

75
00:05:38,534 --> 00:05:46,325
But after all those plagues were over,
he was glad to see them go out.

76
00:05:46,325 --> 00:05:50,686
And God delivered His
people with mighty signs

77
00:05:50,698 --> 00:05:54,791
and awesome wonders
from the land of Egypt.

78
00:05:54,791 --> 00:06:00,072
And once the people were delivered,
He came down on Mount Sinai.

79
00:06:00,072 --> 00:06:03,991
Hebrews 12 says, "He came in
the midst of blazing fire,

80
00:06:03,992 --> 00:06:07,661
and darkness and gloom, and whirlwind.

81
00:06:07,661 --> 00:06:13,221
And a sight so terrible that Moses said,
'I exceedingly fear and tremble.' "

82
00:06:13,221 --> 00:06:19,546
Moses was quaking. And according
to Exodus 19, it says,

83
00:06:19,546 --> 00:06:25,113
"There were thunder and lightning flashes,
and a thick cloud upon the mountain,

84
00:06:25,113 --> 00:06:30,183
and a very loud trumpet sound so that all
the people who were in the camp trembled."

85
00:06:30,183 --> 00:06:39,382
Mount Sinai was all in smoke - listen
to this - because the LORD descended,

86
00:06:39,382 --> 00:06:42,631
He came down upon it.

87
00:06:42,632 --> 00:06:50,245
The LORD descended upon it in fire, and its
smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace,

88
00:06:50,245 --> 00:06:52,864
and the whole mountain quaked violently.

89
00:06:52,864 --> 00:06:58,809
"When Thou didst come down, the mountains
quaked, the mountains flowed down."

90
00:06:58,809 --> 00:07:02,126
So God had come down before
in the history of Israel,

91
00:07:02,126 --> 00:07:06,195
and Isaiah was asking
Him to do it again. (P)

92
00:07:06,195 --> 00:07:10,476
Now, beloved, God answered
Isaiah's prayer, but

93
00:07:10,488 --> 00:07:14,512
He did it in a way that
they looked not for.

94
00:07:14,512 --> 00:07:18,634
It says, "Thou didst awesome things
which we did not expect in the past."

95
00:07:18,634 --> 00:07:23,609
Nobody had any idea what God was going to
do to deliver the people out of Egypt.

96
00:07:23,609 --> 00:07:29,159
And nobody had any idea how God was going
to ultimately answer this prayer of Isaiah.

97
00:07:29,159 --> 00:07:32,881
He's asking God to come down.
God came down.

98
00:07:32,881 --> 00:07:35,402
He came down in the person of His Son.

99
00:07:35,402 --> 00:07:40,327
He came down from above
into this fallen world,

100
00:07:40,327 --> 00:07:45,954
and invaded human history
in the person of His Son.

101
00:07:45,954 --> 00:07:52,457
Malachi 3:1 says, "The Lord, whom you seek,
shall suddenly come to His temple;

102
00:07:52,457 --> 00:07:55,918
even the messenger of the
Covenant, in whom you delight.

103
00:07:55,919 --> 00:08:01,559
But who can abide the day of His coming?
He's like a refiner's fire."

104
00:08:01,559 --> 00:08:08,820
And when the Lord Jesus
came, He was like that.

105
00:08:08,821 --> 00:08:11,794
But He didn't stay in this
world, He ascended to Heaven.

106
00:08:11,794 --> 00:08:18,272
And a few weeks later, God came
down in a more abiding way

107
00:08:18,272 --> 00:08:22,405
when He came down in the
person of the Holy Spirit.

108
00:08:22,405 --> 00:08:28,441
God came down. Who is the Holy Spirit?
He's God.

109
00:08:28,441 --> 00:08:35,688
God came down, on the day of Pentecost,
to abide with the church forever. (P)

110
00:08:35,688 --> 00:08:38,677
Acts chapter 2, Peter is
quoting from Joel, he says,

111
00:08:38,677 --> 00:08:42,148
"It shall be in the last
days, God says, that I

112
00:08:42,160 --> 00:08:45,425
will pour forth of My
Spirit upon all flesh;

113
00:08:45,425 --> 00:08:48,443
and your sons and daughters shall prophesy,

114
00:08:48,443 --> 00:08:52,729
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;

115
00:08:52,729 --> 00:08:55,788
and even upon My bondservants
and My handmaidens

116
00:08:55,800 --> 00:08:58,557
will I pour out of My
Spirit in those days,

117
00:08:58,557 --> 00:09:00,833
and they shall prophesy.

118
00:09:00,833 --> 00:09:05,619
And I will grant wonders in the sky above
and signs on the earth beneath,

119
00:09:05,619 --> 00:09:08,798
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke.

120
00:09:08,798 --> 00:09:12,365
The sun shall be turned into
darkness and the moon into blood,

121
00:09:12,365 --> 00:09:15,521
before the great and glorious
day of the Lord shall come.

122
00:09:15,521 --> 00:09:21,350
And it shall be that everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

123
00:09:21,350 --> 00:09:24,429
Now that's God doing
great and awesome things

124
00:09:24,441 --> 00:09:27,532
which they looked not
for and did not expect.

125
00:09:27,532 --> 00:09:31,093
And it's God coming
down, and the mountains

126
00:09:31,105 --> 00:09:34,841
quaking and flowing down
at His presence. (P)

127
00:09:34,841 --> 00:09:39,750
Beloved, the new covenant
coming of the Holy Spirit

128
00:09:39,750 --> 00:09:46,638
was God's answer to Isaiah's
prayer for God to come down.

129
00:09:46,638 --> 00:09:54,779
He came down in a far more powerful and
more wonderful way on the day of Pentecost.

130
00:09:54,779 --> 00:09:58,581
He came down in a far more wonderful
way than He ever came down,

131
00:09:58,581 --> 00:10:02,262
when He came down with
a bunch of fire and

132
00:10:02,274 --> 00:10:06,310
lightning and all those
things on Mount Sinai.

133
00:10:08,215 --> 00:10:12,953
In the New Covenant, God comes and
puts His Spirit within people.

134
00:10:12,953 --> 00:10:14,597
He regenerates their hearts,

135
00:10:14,597 --> 00:10:19,060
He writes His law on the inside
instead of on the outside;

136
00:10:19,060 --> 00:10:24,665
and He pours out His Spirit upon them
to empower them to do impossible things.

137
00:10:24,665 --> 00:10:27,483
Think of the words of the Lord Jesus.

138
00:10:27,483 --> 00:10:30,401
He said, "In that day you
shall know that I am in you,

139
00:10:30,401 --> 00:10:35,736
and you and Me, and I in the Father."

140
00:10:35,736 --> 00:10:40,321
He says, "He that believes in Me, the
works that I do shall he do also,

141
00:10:40,322 --> 00:10:48,501
and greater works than these shall he
do because I go to the Father." (P)

142
00:10:48,501 --> 00:10:51,299
God doesn't come down on the
physical mountains anymore,

143
00:10:51,299 --> 00:10:54,246
but He does still come down.

144
00:10:54,246 --> 00:10:58,483
And when He does, the mountains
flow down at His presence.

145
00:10:58,483 --> 00:11:06,441
It's the coming of the Holy Spirit,
by which God answers Isaiah's prayer

146
00:11:06,441 --> 00:11:10,952
and solves the problems of
backsliding and backslidden Israel,

147
00:11:10,952 --> 00:11:13,414
and puts His law on the
inside, and has a new

148
00:11:13,426 --> 00:11:16,061
covenant people who won't
turn away from it. (P)

149
00:11:16,061 --> 00:11:23,942
Well, I want to speak to you then on vs 1
to 4 on the subject of God Coming Down –

150
00:11:23,942 --> 00:11:29,501
"Oh, that Thou wouldst rend
the heavens and come down,

151
00:11:29,501 --> 00:11:31,876
that the mountains might
quake at Your presence."

152
00:11:31,876 --> 00:11:34,212
And the first thing that I
want you to notice is this –

153
00:11:34,212 --> 00:11:40,209
very simple, but very
profound – and that is, that

154
00:11:40,221 --> 00:11:46,230
when God comes down, God
is the one who is acting.

155
00:11:46,230 --> 00:11:51,623
God is the one who is coming down.
Now that's pretty simple.

156
00:11:51,623 --> 00:11:56,033
Isaiah is asking God to do something.

157
00:11:56,034 --> 00:11:58,124
He's asking God to intervene.

158
00:11:58,124 --> 00:12:03,812
He's asking God to rend the
heavens and come down.

159
00:12:03,812 --> 00:12:11,443
This prayer has to do with
God's activity, not man's.

160
00:12:11,443 --> 00:12:17,508
It has to do with God's
presence and person, not man's.

161
00:12:17,508 --> 00:12:19,769
We're dealing with
something objective here,

162
00:12:19,769 --> 00:12:24,181
and I want to belabor this some, because
it will help you to understand.

163
00:12:24,181 --> 00:12:28,081
There's so much confusion in relation
to the work of the Holy Spirit.

164
00:12:28,081 --> 00:12:32,097
If we can lay hold of this;
this has to do with God doing

165
00:12:32,109 --> 00:12:35,720
something from the outside,
objective to ourselves.

166
00:12:35,720 --> 00:12:41,351
God comes to us from the outside, and all
this is a result of God's activity. (P)

167
00:12:41,351 --> 00:12:45,614
When God comes down, God's
the one coming down.

168
00:12:45,614 --> 00:12:47,707
He's the one acting.

169
00:12:47,707 --> 00:12:50,259
And we see this so clearly
on the day of Pentecost,

170
00:12:50,259 --> 00:12:54,889
I don't know if you want to turn to
it or not, but I'll read it to you.

171
00:12:54,889 --> 00:13:02,132
Now we're talking about
the activity of God.

172
00:13:02,132 --> 00:13:06,119
In Acts 2:1, it says, "When
the day of Pentecost

173
00:13:06,131 --> 00:13:09,967
had come, they were all
together in one place.

174
00:13:09,967 --> 00:13:21,563
And suddenly there came from Heaven
a noise like a violent rushing wind,

175
00:13:21,563 --> 00:13:25,923
and it filled the whole house
where they were sitting.

176
00:13:25,923 --> 00:13:31,151
And there appeared to them tongues
as of fire distributing themselves,

177
00:13:31,151 --> 00:13:34,321
and they rested on each one of them.

178
00:13:34,321 --> 00:13:37,159
And they were all filled
with the Holy Spirit

179
00:13:37,159 --> 00:13:42,097
and began to speak with other tongues,
as the Spirit was giving them utterance."

180
00:13:42,097 --> 00:13:46,448
Notice the activity of God
here, it's everywhere in this.

181
00:13:46,448 --> 00:13:55,486
This is not man reaching up to God,
this is God coming down to man.

182
00:13:55,486 --> 00:13:59,522
This is not man giving
himself more fully to God,

183
00:13:59,534 --> 00:14:03,581
this is God giving Himself
more fully to man. (P)

184
00:14:03,581 --> 00:14:06,487
Now I'm going to develop this
a little as we go along,

185
00:14:06,487 --> 00:14:10,017
but just listen to these
things, this thought:

186
00:14:10,017 --> 00:14:16,171
This is not man "taking
something by faith".

187
00:14:16,171 --> 00:14:25,252
This is God giving something that man
does not expect and does not look for.

188
00:14:25,252 --> 00:14:30,198
Notice how objective, how given,
how outside of man, this all is.

189
00:14:30,198 --> 00:14:33,577
It happens SUDDENLY.

190
00:14:33,577 --> 00:14:37,316
Suddenly, there came. All right? (P)

191
00:14:37,316 --> 00:14:39,394
They're here, they're waiting.

192
00:14:39,395 --> 00:14:48,440
Suddenly, there comes - from the
outside, from heaven - a noise,

193
00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:57,502
a sound, like a violent rushing wind –
objective. And it fills the whole house.

194
00:14:57,502 --> 00:15:00,603
And there appears these tongues of fire.

195
00:15:00,603 --> 00:15:04,041
We're dealing with
something objective that

196
00:15:04,053 --> 00:15:07,738
comes from the outside
that God has initiated.

197
00:15:07,738 --> 00:15:10,087
And if we're looking for
terminology for this,

198
00:15:10,087 --> 00:15:14,763
it's what the Bible calls "An
Outpouring of the Holy Spirit."

199
00:15:14,763 --> 00:15:18,999
The Holy Spirit comes down,
He's poured out upon us.

200
00:15:18,999 --> 00:15:22,882
And Peter quotes from Joel,
and he quotes his prophecy,

201
00:15:22,882 --> 00:15:26,608
he says, "What's happening
here on the day of Pentecost,

202
00:15:26,608 --> 00:15:30,457
this is what was spoken of by Joel.

203
00:15:30,457 --> 00:15:33,527
'It will come about in the
last days,' saith the LORD,

204
00:15:33,527 --> 00:15:39,480
'that I'll pour out My
Spirit upon all flesh;

205
00:15:39,495 --> 00:15:41,631
and your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy.' "

206
00:15:41,631 --> 00:15:49,932
Not just prophets, but God has things
for bondservants and handmaidens,

207
00:15:49,932 --> 00:15:53,768
and housewives doing the dishes.

208
00:15:53,768 --> 00:15:56,343
What a promise this is!

209
00:15:56,343 --> 00:16:02,383
"I'll pour out My Spirit upon all flesh -
your sons and daughters shall prophesy,

210
00:16:02,384 --> 00:16:06,165
your young men shall see visions,
your old men shall dream dreams.

211
00:16:06,165 --> 00:16:08,629
Even upon My bondservants
and My handmaidens -

212
00:16:08,629 --> 00:16:15,903
that's talking about you and me!
not just those guys.

213
00:16:17,280 --> 00:16:21,536
An outpouring of the Spirit of God -
this is something that God does. (P)

214
00:16:21,540 --> 00:16:29,053
Now there is a great deal of emphasis in
the New Testament on our responsibility.

215
00:16:29,053 --> 00:16:31,849
And there are a lot of things
that we're commanded to do.

216
00:16:31,849 --> 00:16:35,888
We're commanded to believe God,
we're commanded to obey God.

217
00:16:35,888 --> 00:16:39,576
And, in relation to the Holy Spirit,
one of the things that we're commanded is,

218
00:16:39,576 --> 00:16:42,083
we're commanded to be
filled with the Spirit.

219
00:16:42,083 --> 00:16:46,858
Being filled with the Spirit,
that's a commandment.

220
00:16:46,858 --> 00:16:50,369
And you understand, when the Bible talks
about 'being filled with something',

221
00:16:50,369 --> 00:16:53,913
we have this idea of taking a cup
and filling it up with water.

222
00:16:53,913 --> 00:16:59,588
But to be filled with something means
to be utterly under the control of,

223
00:16:59,588 --> 00:17:03,477
and possessed by, you
might say, that thing.

224
00:17:03,477 --> 00:17:07,444
There's a lot of examples of
this in the New Testament.

225
00:17:07,445 --> 00:17:12,117
But if you look around and you read,
it says, "They were all filled with rage."

226
00:17:12,117 --> 00:17:14,748
Well, that doesn't mean that
somebody poured rage into them,

227
00:17:14,748 --> 00:17:18,185
it means that they were
under the control of rage.

228
00:17:18,185 --> 00:17:21,896
They were filled with it,
it just possessed them.

229
00:17:21,896 --> 00:17:27,271
And so when He says, "Be filled with
the Spirit," it's a commandment.

230
00:17:27,271 --> 00:17:34,731
You are commanded to come to God and
give yourself over to Him for His control.

231
00:17:34,731 --> 00:17:38,241
And so, we are to come to God - we
are responsible to come to God -

232
00:17:38,242 --> 00:17:43,560
and repent of known sin,
and believe what He has

233
00:17:43,572 --> 00:17:49,119
said about our ability in
Christ to walk by faith.

234
00:17:49,120 --> 00:17:52,496
And it's life-changing. (P)

235
00:17:52,496 --> 00:17:55,943
I've been in meetings
like this before, where

236
00:17:55,955 --> 00:17:59,413
God would put His finger
on some area of sin.

237
00:17:59,413 --> 00:18:02,539
And you get alone before God
and you ask His forgiveness.

238
00:18:02,539 --> 00:18:07,886
And you see, you know, by the grace
of God I have power in Christ,

239
00:18:07,886 --> 00:18:11,456
I don't have to be
defeated by this anymore.

240
00:18:11,457 --> 00:18:15,007
You see, that's repentance and faith.
That's our responsibility.

241
00:18:15,007 --> 00:18:20,923
And you give yourself afresh to God, and,
lo and behold, you're different after that.

242
00:18:20,923 --> 00:18:27,084
Haven't you seen this? I've seen meetings
where one meeting changed my life.

243
00:18:27,084 --> 00:18:28,894
As Brother Don said this morning,

244
00:18:28,894 --> 00:18:32,535
it's far away from perfection
but there's a difference,

245
00:18:32,535 --> 00:18:34,346
you're different from then on.

246
00:18:34,346 --> 00:18:38,876
God gave you, brought you into an area
of victory that you never had before.

247
00:18:38,876 --> 00:18:43,343
And you're on a different plane,
and you never go back to the way you were.

248
00:18:43,343 --> 00:18:47,924
That has to do with deep repentance
before God, and believing,

249
00:18:47,924 --> 00:18:52,812
and having your mind renewed
to see who you are in Christ,

250
00:18:52,812 --> 00:18:54,764
and the power that you have in Christ.

251
00:18:54,764 --> 00:18:57,839
That all has to do with our responsibility.

252
00:18:57,839 --> 00:19:01,296
You're commanded to be
filled with the Spirit. (P)

253
00:19:01,296 --> 00:19:06,620
But, beloved, you cannot make God come
down. That's something different.

254
00:19:06,620 --> 00:19:11,440
You can ask God to come down, like Isaiah
did, but you can't make Him come down.

255
00:19:11,440 --> 00:19:17,293
When we talk about God coming down,
we're talking about God's activity.

256
00:19:17,293 --> 00:19:19,722
If you could just get this clear,

257
00:19:19,722 --> 00:19:22,248
because there's a lot of things
you'll read in the book of Acts,

258
00:19:22,248 --> 00:19:24,363
and sometimes you can see as you read it,

259
00:19:24,363 --> 00:19:29,122
you say, "Wait, this has to do with them
giving themselves more fully to God."

260
00:19:29,122 --> 00:19:33,902
But other times you're reading, you
say, "That's God coming down."

261
00:19:33,902 --> 00:19:37,138
And if you can get the picture of
the total thing that's happening,

262
00:19:37,138 --> 00:19:40,165
it helps you regardless of
the terminology that's used.

263
00:19:40,165 --> 00:19:43,424
Now, a lot of times the
terminology is pretty clear.

264
00:19:43,424 --> 00:19:49,632
"The Spirit had not yet fallen upon
them" – that's God coming down.

265
00:19:49,632 --> 00:19:53,560
And it'll help you to sort
some of these things out.

266
00:19:53,560 --> 00:19:56,753
But there's a lot of things
that we are responsible for,

267
00:19:56,753 --> 00:20:00,977
and in a word we're responsible
to walk in the Spirit.

268
00:20:00,977 --> 00:20:02,712
And that has to do with our activity.

269
00:20:02,712 --> 00:20:10,059
But again, these passages have to do, not
with our activity, but with God's activity.

270
00:20:10,059 --> 00:20:12,864
And this is what happened in Acts 2. (P)

271
00:20:12,864 --> 00:20:15,374
But here's what we need to get.

272
00:20:15,374 --> 00:20:20,643
This didn't just happen in Acts chapter 2,
it happened again a couple chapters later.

273
00:20:20,643 --> 00:20:22,956
God came down again.

274
00:20:22,956 --> 00:20:27,456
And this is the big encouragement because
we don't just have to read Acts chapter 2

275
00:20:27,456 --> 00:20:29,663
and say, "Wasn't that wonderful?
God came down.

276
00:20:29,663 --> 00:20:35,649
I wish I would have lived back then
when God was real and when God came down."

277
00:20:35,649 --> 00:20:38,982
That's not the way it is.

278
00:20:38,982 --> 00:20:47,612
Acts chapter 4, let me read it
to you, starting at verse 23,

279
00:20:47,612 --> 00:20:51,370
"And when they had been released,
they went to their own companions

280
00:20:51,370 --> 00:20:54,658
and reported all that the chief priests
and the elders had said to them.

281
00:20:54,658 --> 00:20:58,995
And when they heard this, they lifted their
voices to God with one accord and said,

282
00:20:58,995 --> 00:21:02,203
"O Lord, it is You who
made the heaven and the

283
00:21:02,215 --> 00:21:05,229
earth and the sea, and
all that is in them,

284
00:21:05,229 --> 00:21:09,691
who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth
of our father David Your servant, said,

285
00:21:09,691 --> 00:21:14,061
'Why did the Gentiles rage, and
the peoples devise futile things?

286
00:21:14,061 --> 00:21:16,061
The kings of the earth
took their stand...' "

287
00:21:16,061 --> 00:21:19,210
And they go on reviewing
what God has said in

288
00:21:19,222 --> 00:21:22,315
His Word and what He's
done in the past. (P)

289
00:21:22,315 --> 00:21:27,316
And then they say in verse 29, " 'And
now, Lord, take note of their threats,

290
00:21:27,317 --> 00:21:32,188
and grant that Your bond-servants
may speak Your word with all confidence,

291
00:21:32,188 --> 00:21:36,063
while You extend Your hand to heal,

292
00:21:36,063 --> 00:21:40,413
and signs and wonders take place through
the name of Your holy servant Jesus.'

293
00:21:40,413 --> 00:21:47,534
And when they had prayed, the place where
they had gathered together was shaken,

294
00:21:47,534 --> 00:21:51,967
and they were all filled
with the Holy Spirit and

295
00:21:51,979 --> 00:21:56,069
began to speak the word
of God with boldness.

296
00:21:56,069 --> 00:21:59,532
And the congregation of those who believed
were of one heart and one soul;

297
00:21:59,532 --> 00:22:02,863
and not one of them claimed that
anything belonging to him was his own,

298
00:22:02,863 --> 00:22:05,548
but all things were
common property to them.

299
00:22:05,548 --> 00:22:08,507
And with great power the
apostles were giving

300
00:22:08,519 --> 00:22:11,554
witness to the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus,

301
00:22:11,554 --> 00:22:15,760
and abundant grace was upon them all."

302
00:22:15,760 --> 00:22:20,666
Now what happened there? They're
praying, and God comes down.

303
00:22:20,666 --> 00:22:25,055
And the place is shaken, and suddenly
they're all filled with the Holy Spirit

304
00:22:25,055 --> 00:22:30,219
and begin to speak the
word of God with boldness.

305
00:22:30,219 --> 00:22:36,338
What is this? It's another
outpouring of the Holy Spirit. (P)

306
00:22:36,338 --> 00:22:40,788
As I said earlier I think,
or Brother Mack said,

307
00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:44,716
historically this has
been called Revival.

308
00:22:44,716 --> 00:22:47,912
Now we live in a time when
the term 'revival' has

309
00:22:47,924 --> 00:22:51,260
taken on the meaning of
just any special meetings -

310
00:22:51,260 --> 00:22:54,165
"We're going to have a revival.
We're going to hold a revival."

311
00:22:54,165 --> 00:22:59,996
But historically, back earlier in
church history in the 1700s and 1800s,

312
00:22:59,996 --> 00:23:06,115
a revival was talking about an
outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

313
00:23:06,115 --> 00:23:09,524
I personally don't know if
that's the best word for this,

314
00:23:09,524 --> 00:23:14,403
because a revival gives
the concept that the

315
00:23:14,415 --> 00:23:19,524
true church is either
dead or just about dead.

316
00:23:19,524 --> 00:23:23,856
You know, somebody's on the beach there,
and they're just about ready to go out.

317
00:23:23,856 --> 00:23:29,279
And you say, "I gave him artificial
respiration and he revived!"

318
00:23:29,279 --> 00:23:33,569
And I think that's a wrong idea
of what we're talking about.

319
00:23:33,570 --> 00:23:36,407
That's not the situation
in the book of Acts.

320
00:23:36,407 --> 00:23:42,021
You read Acts chapter 4, these
people were not backslidden.

321
00:23:42,021 --> 00:23:45,541
They have just been
filled with the Spirit in

322
00:23:45,553 --> 00:23:49,084
Acts chapter 2 in a
powerful, mighty way. (P)

323
00:23:49,084 --> 00:23:53,441
A lot of men, who are from a background
of what's called Covenant Theology,

324
00:23:53,441 --> 00:23:55,163
speak of revival in this way.

325
00:23:55,163 --> 00:24:00,780
They equate Old Testament
Israel with the true church.

326
00:24:00,780 --> 00:24:06,314
And so they say things like this:
"God has turned His back on the church."

327
00:24:06,314 --> 00:24:09,870
"There's just as much adultery in the
church as there is in the world."

328
00:24:09,870 --> 00:24:12,490
"The church doesn't any longer
believe in the Virgin Birth."

329
00:24:12,490 --> 00:24:13,349
All those things.

330
00:24:13,349 --> 00:24:18,283
That's not the true church, beloved.
That's not what the church is.

331
00:24:18,283 --> 00:24:21,130
And a lot of times they
get all of their ideas of

332
00:24:21,142 --> 00:24:23,944
what they call 'revival'
from the Old Testament.

333
00:24:23,944 --> 00:24:28,986
Well, there's a difference between
Old Testament Israel and the church.

334
00:24:28,986 --> 00:24:36,665
Old Testament Israel was a physical nation
made up mainly of unregenerate people.

335
00:24:36,665 --> 00:24:40,358
If you don't believe that,
look at the way they lived.

336
00:24:40,358 --> 00:24:44,132
And God said, "There's a day coming
when I'm going to do something special.

337
00:24:44,132 --> 00:24:49,015
I'm going to put My law inside of them,
it's not just gonna be on the outside."

338
00:24:49,015 --> 00:24:52,364
In general (now there were
regenerate people too)

339
00:24:52,364 --> 00:24:57,090
but in general, the reality was that
the law was just on the outside,

340
00:24:57,090 --> 00:24:58,768
and as soon as you gave them a chance -

341
00:24:58,768 --> 00:25:01,195
like Moses goes up on the
mountain for a little while,

342
00:25:01,196 --> 00:25:05,714
and by the time he gets back they had made
a golden calf and they're going wild!

343
00:25:05,714 --> 00:25:08,800
That's not regenerate people. (P)

344
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:12,553
And so in the New Covenant, God says,
"I'm going to take care of this.

345
00:25:12,553 --> 00:25:14,737
The kingdom is going to
be taken away from you

346
00:25:14,737 --> 00:25:18,459
and given to a nation that
brings forth the fruit of it."

347
00:25:18,459 --> 00:25:22,306
And that nation is that spiritual
nation, a holy nation,

348
00:25:22,307 --> 00:25:25,705
a royal priesthood that we are.

349
00:25:25,705 --> 00:25:28,037
So God has not turned
His back on the church,

350
00:25:28,037 --> 00:25:31,261
and God has not forsaken the
church, the true church.

351
00:25:31,261 --> 00:25:33,983
I mean, the true church is alive and well.

352
00:25:33,983 --> 00:25:37,017
At least, I have the
feeling that the true

353
00:25:37,029 --> 00:25:40,499
church is alive and well
here in this gathering.

354
00:25:40,499 --> 00:25:45,713
I don't want to minimize the glory
of what God has done in your lives.

355
00:25:45,713 --> 00:25:49,032
I can see miracles!

356
00:25:49,032 --> 00:25:52,309
But, beloved, that doesn't mean we don't
need what the early church needed.

357
00:25:52,310 --> 00:25:55,909
We need a fresh outpouring
of the Holy Spirit.

358
00:25:55,909 --> 00:25:57,255
You see that?

359
00:25:57,255 --> 00:26:00,072
It's not a deal where
we come and we pray to

360
00:26:00,084 --> 00:26:02,724
God, and if He doesn't
answer right away,

361
00:26:02,724 --> 00:26:08,422
we say, "Well, God has turned His back on
me. God is not for me. God's against us."

362
00:26:08,422 --> 00:26:10,838
You know, that's not the reality.

363
00:26:10,839 --> 00:26:14,831
God is for you; and He is with
us; and He is helping us.

364
00:26:14,831 --> 00:26:20,492
But mercy drops around us are falling,
but for the showers we plead.

365
00:26:20,492 --> 00:26:27,902
That's what that prayer is. "Oh
that You would come down."

366
00:26:27,902 --> 00:26:32,374
In the book of Acts we see this happening,
God pouring out His Spirit afresh,

367
00:26:32,374 --> 00:26:38,654
not on a backslidden people, but
on a dependent and needy people.

368
00:26:38,654 --> 00:26:44,541
And not on a worthy people, but
on His people. His people.

369
00:26:44,541 --> 00:26:47,713
He's pleased to do that. (P)

370
00:26:47,713 --> 00:26:49,500
Well, when God pours out His Spirit,

371
00:26:49,500 --> 00:26:53,450
He comes down and makes His
presence known in mighty ways.

372
00:26:53,450 --> 00:27:00,961
And He has been pleased to do this, time
after time, down through church history.

373
00:27:00,961 --> 00:27:02,829
And in my own life, I don't
know about some of you,

374
00:27:02,829 --> 00:27:04,278
some of you this may be new.

375
00:27:04,279 --> 00:27:08,824
Maybe you've never heard of God
pouring out His Spirit historically.

376
00:27:08,825 --> 00:27:11,069
But some of you have heard about it,

377
00:27:11,069 --> 00:27:14,634
and maybe like me you've been stirred for
a while, you pray about it and so on,

378
00:27:14,634 --> 00:27:18,457
but you kind of begin to feel like,
"Well, maybe He's not going to do that."

379
00:27:18,457 --> 00:27:22,963
Beloved, He could do it again here.

380
00:27:22,963 --> 00:27:25,567
It's not because we're so worthy, you know,

381
00:27:25,567 --> 00:27:27,902
you can get the idea,
"Boy, if we were just

382
00:27:27,914 --> 00:27:30,475
more on fire for God like
the early church was,

383
00:27:30,475 --> 00:27:33,572
then He would do stuff, He would
pour out His Spirit on us."

384
00:27:33,572 --> 00:27:36,768
Beloved, the reason the
early church was on fire

385
00:27:36,780 --> 00:27:40,054
was that God had poured
out His Spirit upon them.

386
00:27:40,054 --> 00:27:45,278
It's not the idea that they merited
something and then He came. (P)

387
00:27:45,278 --> 00:27:47,186
It's very easy to get this thing,

388
00:27:47,186 --> 00:27:49,360
and I've listened to men
preach on this subject,

389
00:27:49,360 --> 00:27:51,078
and you get this whole thing turned around

390
00:27:51,078 --> 00:27:55,854
to where the fruit of love, joy,
peace and so on, is the Holy Spirit.

391
00:27:55,854 --> 00:27:58,193
That's not what the Bible says.

392
00:27:58,193 --> 00:28:04,044
It's not saying, "If you're Christ-like
enough, God will give you His Spirit."

393
00:28:04,044 --> 00:28:10,752
It's that He supplies us with
what we need to be like that.

394
00:28:10,752 --> 00:28:13,311
And so we're coming as His
children, and we're saying,

395
00:28:13,311 --> 00:28:17,283
"Father, You said that
the New Covenant could

396
00:28:17,295 --> 00:28:21,452
be characterized as the
Ministry of the Spirit.

397
00:28:21,452 --> 00:28:24,813
And we're seeing so little right now."

398
00:28:24,813 --> 00:28:29,717
And, brethren, I remember a time,
and from the people that I've known,

399
00:28:29,717 --> 00:28:37,042
they've told of little... I
mean, 50, 75 or 100 years ago,

400
00:28:37,042 --> 00:28:42,978
it was not uncommon to have just a
camp-meeting, and God would move in,

401
00:28:42,978 --> 00:28:49,422
and 25 or 30 people would be sobbing in
the front under deep conviction of sin.

402
00:28:49,430 --> 00:28:52,705
And we're thankful for what
He is doing even here.

403
00:28:52,705 --> 00:28:57,905
But if God came down here, this thing
would be a totally different thing,

404
00:28:57,905 --> 00:28:59,399
wouldn't it?

405
00:28:59,399 --> 00:29:05,733
I mean, deep movings of
the Spirit of God. (P)

406
00:29:05,733 --> 00:29:09,503
What happens when God comes down?

407
00:29:09,503 --> 00:29:12,056
Well, three things that I
want to bring out that

408
00:29:12,068 --> 00:29:14,372
are illustrated in the
verses in Isaiah 64.

409
00:29:14,372 --> 00:29:19,083
First of all, there is a glorious
sense of God's presence.

410
00:29:19,083 --> 00:29:23,984
Now there are many other things related
to the outpouring of the Spirit

411
00:29:23,984 --> 00:29:27,576
or what has historically
been called revival.

412
00:29:27,576 --> 00:29:31,604
But at least this much in this passage,

413
00:29:31,604 --> 00:29:34,489
"Oh that thou would rend
the heavens and come down,

414
00:29:34,489 --> 00:29:39,842
that the mountains might quake - what?
- at Thy presence."

415
00:29:39,842 --> 00:29:46,824
In verse 2, "That the nations
may tremble at Thy presence."

416
00:29:46,824 --> 00:29:56,644
And verse 3, "When Thou didst come down,
the mountains quaked at Thy presence."

417
00:29:56,644 --> 00:30:00,274
Now we might expect that there
would be a sense of God's presence

418
00:30:00,274 --> 00:30:05,002
because when God comes down,
He's the One that comes down.

419
00:30:05,002 --> 00:30:14,064
But think of this: When we think of our
great God, the God who created everything,

420
00:30:14,065 --> 00:30:18,216
suppose that God came down in here tonight.

421
00:30:18,216 --> 00:30:27,057
I mean, we would all dissolve, as would
the building, and the whole world. (P)

422
00:30:27,057 --> 00:30:29,381
Now we know God is everywhere.

423
00:30:29,381 --> 00:30:32,315
And we know that when God
comes down He doesn't

424
00:30:32,327 --> 00:30:34,843
manifest all that He
is or we'd all die.

425
00:30:34,843 --> 00:30:39,170
But what He does is, He
pulls back the curtain

426
00:30:39,182 --> 00:30:42,783
more than it's ever
been in our lives.

427
00:30:42,783 --> 00:30:44,313
He comes and manifests.

428
00:30:44,313 --> 00:30:49,391
We're talking about, of course He's
present, but He manifests His presence.

429
00:30:49,391 --> 00:30:51,442
He comes down.

430
00:30:51,442 --> 00:30:55,163
And what happens when He's
present is, mountains

431
00:30:55,175 --> 00:30:58,450
start quaking and nations
start trembling,

432
00:30:58,450 --> 00:31:02,670
and He does awesome things.

433
00:31:04,416 --> 00:31:11,457
Conscious reality. When God's
presence becomes a conscious reality.

434
00:31:11,457 --> 00:31:15,476
I was in a meeting one time
in Louisiana many years ago,

435
00:31:15,476 --> 00:31:21,766
and this was not historic revival,
it was just God coming into the meeting.

436
00:31:21,766 --> 00:31:25,778
And the sermon, I didn't particularly
get that much out of the sermon,

437
00:31:25,779 --> 00:31:29,368
but after that sermon was
over, God came into the room.

438
00:31:29,368 --> 00:31:33,342
I can't explain that. Everybody
there knew that He was there.

439
00:31:33,342 --> 00:31:38,924
I mean, it was this sense
of "God is in this room".

440
00:31:38,924 --> 00:31:41,315
He just was pleased to do that. (P)

441
00:31:41,315 --> 00:31:44,969
We had a little taste
of that one time when

442
00:31:44,981 --> 00:31:48,981
Brother Don and Keith
McCloud came to Missouri.

443
00:31:48,981 --> 00:31:53,855
And we went into a basement meeting room
right after lunch, I think it was,

444
00:31:53,855 --> 00:32:00,051
and we were gonna have a little
testimony time and celebrate communion

445
00:32:00,051 --> 00:32:02,875
(I mean, take the Lord's
Supper) and go out.

446
00:32:02,875 --> 00:32:07,086
And we had communion but
it wasn't that kind.

447
00:32:07,086 --> 00:32:12,044
We never got around to that.
God came in a measure.

448
00:32:12,044 --> 00:32:17,336
And it was one of those things our
children, our little crying babies,

449
00:32:17,336 --> 00:32:22,476
who hadn't had anything to eat all
day that afternoon, went to sleep.

450
00:32:22,476 --> 00:32:24,912
And all the mothers are right
there, everybody was there,

451
00:32:24,913 --> 00:32:27,494
you wouldn't even know
there were any babies.

452
00:32:27,494 --> 00:32:30,528
They were all asleep.

453
00:32:30,528 --> 00:32:36,034
And when we came out of that time,
it was like time stood still.

454
00:32:36,034 --> 00:32:38,609
And when we came out of
that meeting, we looked

455
00:32:38,621 --> 00:32:40,938
around and it's like,
"It's dark out here.

456
00:32:40,938 --> 00:32:45,951
We've been in there for
hours." No knowledge of time.

457
00:32:45,951 --> 00:32:51,311
Duncan Campbell, I think, said,
"The silence of eternity."

458
00:32:51,311 --> 00:32:54,391
God coming down into the midst.

459
00:32:54,391 --> 00:32:57,236
Don't you want him to come down? (P)

460
00:32:57,236 --> 00:33:03,015
Think of this: When God
comes down in His presence,

461
00:33:03,015 --> 00:33:15,092
mountains shake and mountains
melt (they do!) and nations fear.

462
00:33:15,092 --> 00:33:19,209
It's like when Jacob said, "Surely the
LORD is in this place" (Gen. 28:16).

463
00:33:19,209 --> 00:33:27,184
He came to that realization, he was afraid,
and he said, "How dreadful is this place!

464
00:33:27,184 --> 00:33:31,762
this is none other than the house of God,
and this is the gate of Heaven."

465
00:33:31,762 --> 00:33:37,031
There's a sense of awe, you can
see that in the book of Acts.

466
00:33:37,031 --> 00:33:41,866
Acts 2:43, "Fear (or awe)
came upon every soul."

467
00:33:41,866 --> 00:33:45,762
Acts 5:11, "Great fear
came upon all the church."

468
00:33:45,762 --> 00:33:50,226
Acts 19:17, "Fear fell
upon them all, and the

469
00:33:50,238 --> 00:33:54,422
name of the Lord Jesus
was magnified." (P)

470
00:33:54,422 --> 00:33:59,410
I want to read to you just a little bit
of some accounts from church history,

471
00:33:59,410 --> 00:34:03,738
and I've almost picked these
at random, not quite.

472
00:34:03,738 --> 00:34:07,321
But just to give you a
feel again, this is from

473
00:34:07,333 --> 00:34:10,554
a book called Rent Heavens by R.
B. Jones.

474
00:34:10,554 --> 00:34:16,596
This was the Welsh Revival, that Brother
Mack talked about, in 1904, 1905.

475
00:34:16,596 --> 00:34:19,066
He says, "If one were
asked to describe in a

476
00:34:19,078 --> 00:34:21,505
word the outstanding
feature of those days,

477
00:34:21,505 --> 00:34:25,064
one would unhesitatingly
reply that it was the

478
00:34:25,076 --> 00:34:29,103
universal, inescapable sense
of the presence of God.

479
00:34:29,103 --> 00:34:31,359
God had come down.

480
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:34,049
A sense of the Lord's
presence was everywhere.

481
00:34:34,050 --> 00:34:38,016
It pervaded, it created
the spiritual atmosphere.

482
00:34:38,016 --> 00:34:42,129
It mattered not where one
went, the consciousness

483
00:34:42,141 --> 00:34:45,853
of the reality and
nearness of God followed.

484
00:34:45,853 --> 00:34:49,877
Felt of course in the revival gatherings,
it was by no means confined to them.

485
00:34:49,878 --> 00:34:52,867
It was also felt in the
homes, on the streets,

486
00:34:52,879 --> 00:34:55,688
in the mines and
factories, in the schools;

487
00:34:55,688 --> 00:34:59,357
even in the theaters and
drinking saloons. (P)

488
00:34:59,357 --> 00:35:04,919
"The strange result was that wherever
people gathered became a place of awe,

489
00:35:04,919 --> 00:35:09,244
and places of amusement and
carousal were practically emptied.

490
00:35:09,244 --> 00:35:14,365
Many were the instances of men entering
public houses, ordering drinks,

491
00:35:14,365 --> 00:35:19,255
and then turning on their heels and
leaving them on the counters untouched.

492
00:35:19,255 --> 00:35:22,348
The sense of the Lord's presence
was such as practically

493
00:35:22,348 --> 00:35:26,353
to paralyze the arm that would
raise the cup to the lips.

494
00:35:26,353 --> 00:35:29,558
Football teams and the like were disbanded.

495
00:35:29,558 --> 00:35:31,880
Their members finding
greater joy and

496
00:35:31,892 --> 00:35:34,656
testimony to the Lord's
grace than in games.

497
00:35:34,656 --> 00:35:38,398
The pit bottoms and galleries
became places of praise and prayer,

498
00:35:38,398 --> 00:35:43,122
where the miners (Wales
was a mining country),

499
00:35:43,122 --> 00:35:48,547
where the miners gathered to worship before
they dispersed to their several stalls.

500
00:35:48,547 --> 00:35:51,979
Even the children of the Day Schools:

501
00:35:51,979 --> 00:35:55,083
stories could be told of how they
would gather in any place they could,

502
00:35:55,083 --> 00:36:00,555
where they would sing and pray
in most impressive fashion."

503
00:36:00,555 --> 00:36:05,794
Sense of the Lord's presence. (P)

504
00:36:05,794 --> 00:36:07,281
He tells about one of the meetings,

505
00:36:07,281 --> 00:36:10,415
he says, "It's difficult
to overstate or overvalue

506
00:36:10,427 --> 00:36:12,894
this remarkable feature
of the revival.

507
00:36:12,894 --> 00:36:17,099
The writer will never forget
one outstanding experience

508
00:36:17,099 --> 00:36:24,081
of this sense of an atmosphere laden
with the power of God's realized presence.

509
00:36:24,082 --> 00:36:28,841
The memory of that meeting, even after
more than a quarter of a century,

510
00:36:28,841 --> 00:36:35,401
is well nigh overwhelming."
The memory is overwhelming.

511
00:36:36,996 --> 00:36:41,568
"It was easily the greatest
meeting the writer was ever in.

512
00:36:41,568 --> 00:36:44,178
The theme of the message
was Isaiah chapter 6.

513
00:36:44,178 --> 00:36:49,491
The light of God's holiness was turned upon
the hearts and lives of those present.

514
00:36:49,491 --> 00:36:53,250
Conviction of sin and its
terrible dessert was so crushing

515
00:36:53,250 --> 00:36:57,938
that a feeling, almost of
despair, grew over all hearts.

516
00:36:57,938 --> 00:36:59,739
So grievous a thing was sin,

517
00:36:59,739 --> 00:37:03,614
so richly and inevitably did it
deserve the severest judgment of God,

518
00:37:03,614 --> 00:37:08,561
that hearts questioned: 'Could God forgive?
Could God cleanse?'

519
00:37:08,561 --> 00:37:11,189
Then came the word about
the altar, the tongs, and

520
00:37:11,201 --> 00:37:13,789
the live coal touching the
confessedly vile lips,

521
00:37:13,789 --> 00:37:17,432
and the gracious and complete
removal of their vileness.

522
00:37:17,432 --> 00:37:19,512
And after all, there was hope.

523
00:37:19,513 --> 00:37:25,300
God was forgiving, and He had
cleansing for the worst.

524
00:37:25,300 --> 00:37:28,733
When the rapt listeners
realized all this, the effect

525
00:37:28,745 --> 00:37:32,063
was absolutely beyond any
metaphor to describe. (P)

526
00:37:32,063 --> 00:37:38,696
"As one man, first with a sigh of relief
and then with the delirious shout of joy,

527
00:37:38,696 --> 00:37:42,535
the whole huge audience
sprang to their feet.

528
00:37:42,535 --> 00:37:46,540
The vision had completely overwhelmed them
and one that's not ashamed to tell it.

529
00:37:46,540 --> 00:37:49,659
For a moment they were beside
themselves with heavenly joy."

530
00:37:49,659 --> 00:37:58,508
All that's from hearing about the
tongs touching the lips of Isaiah.

531
00:37:58,508 --> 00:38:02,316
"The whole place at that moment was
so awful with the glory of God.

532
00:38:02,316 --> 00:38:07,934
The holy presence of God was so manifested
that the speaker himself was overwhelmed.

533
00:38:07,934 --> 00:38:10,652
The pulpit where he stood
was so filled with

534
00:38:10,664 --> 00:38:13,273
the light of God that
he had to withdraw."

535
00:38:13,274 --> 00:38:19,196
That's God coming into one meeting. (P)

536
00:38:22,140 --> 00:38:24,785
The presence of God.

537
00:38:24,785 --> 00:38:28,938
When God comes down there's
a sense of His presence.

538
00:38:28,938 --> 00:38:34,150
Duncan Campbell, in the
Hebrides Revival in 1949,

539
00:38:34,151 --> 00:38:37,832
said that God's presence was so
manifest in those Hebrides Islands

540
00:38:37,832 --> 00:38:41,559
that sea captains would be
sailing down the channel

541
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:44,700
between the islands and the comet(?),

542
00:38:44,700 --> 00:38:46,955
and they would come under
conviction of sin,

543
00:38:46,955 --> 00:38:51,867
and they'd be out on the deck of their
ships praying, crying out to God.

544
00:38:51,867 --> 00:38:55,656
God's presence. (P)

545
00:38:55,656 --> 00:39:04,900
This is from Edward Payson.

546
00:39:06,408 --> 00:39:11,889
He talks about how in a meeting like this,
sometimes there'll be one person,

547
00:39:11,889 --> 00:39:15,209
there'll be someone
that God speaks to and

548
00:39:15,221 --> 00:39:18,707
he feels that he alone
is the one spoken to,

549
00:39:18,707 --> 00:39:21,991
and that God is there, and
he's almost unconscious

550
00:39:22,003 --> 00:39:24,718
of the presence of his
fellow worshipers.

551
00:39:24,718 --> 00:39:28,660
But he says, "When God
thus speaks to the whole

552
00:39:28,672 --> 00:39:32,378
or the greatest part of
an assembly at once,

553
00:39:32,378 --> 00:39:38,199
as He sometimes does when He comes
to revive his work extensively,

554
00:39:38,199 --> 00:39:41,679
these effects are experienced in
these appearances exhibited by all.

555
00:39:41,679 --> 00:39:48,712
No scene on this side of the bar of God
can be more overpoweringly solemn

556
00:39:48,712 --> 00:39:52,930
than the scene which such
an assembly exhibits.

557
00:39:52,930 --> 00:39:58,417
Then the Father of spirits is
present to the spirits He has made;

558
00:39:58,417 --> 00:40:02,276
present to each one of
them and speaking to each.

559
00:40:02,276 --> 00:40:05,087
Each one feels that the
eye of God is upon

560
00:40:05,099 --> 00:40:08,185
him, that the voice of
God is speaking to him.

561
00:40:08,185 --> 00:40:14,975
Each one, therefore, though surrounded
by numbers, mourns solitary and apart.

562
00:40:14,976 --> 00:40:17,225
The powers of the world to come are felt.

563
00:40:17,225 --> 00:40:23,785
Eternity, with all its crushing realities,
opens to view and descends upon the mind.

564
00:40:23,785 --> 00:40:27,486
The final sentence, the judgment of
God, though uttered by human lips,

565
00:40:27,486 --> 00:40:33,712
comes with scarcely less weight than
if pronounced by the Judge Himself."

566
00:40:33,712 --> 00:40:39,105
That's what happens when God comes.

567
00:40:41,256 --> 00:40:46,131
Oh that God might do it again. (P)

568
00:40:47,861 --> 00:40:51,321
One of the surest marks of God's
presence is that men are humbled

569
00:40:51,322 --> 00:40:54,102
and there's a deep sense
of conviction of sin.

570
00:40:54,102 --> 00:40:59,607
Again I mentioned Brother Keith McCloud,
who was involved in revival in Canada.

571
00:40:59,607 --> 00:41:02,633
He said, one time he was
driving along in his

572
00:41:02,645 --> 00:41:05,550
car, listening to a
message by a godly man,

573
00:41:05,550 --> 00:41:09,213
and there was this sense that God had come.

574
00:41:09,213 --> 00:41:12,972
And he pulled the car over
to the side of the road,

575
00:41:12,984 --> 00:41:16,900
and he got down on his face
in the bottom of the car.

576
00:41:16,900 --> 00:41:19,643
He said, "If I could have,
I would have pushed

577
00:41:19,655 --> 00:41:21,941
my way through the
floor to get lower."

578
00:41:21,941 --> 00:41:27,037
And he said, "I felt so unclean
in the presence of God,

579
00:41:27,037 --> 00:41:31,898
though I could not think of one
sin in my life at the time."

580
00:41:31,898 --> 00:41:36,993
Now if that's true of a godly man,
what is it of the sinner? (P)

581
00:41:36,993 --> 00:41:43,180
In the Hebrides Revival, again,
Duncan Campbell told about,

582
00:41:43,180 --> 00:41:51,214
I think it was seven or nine atheists; men
who were educated, men that were weavers.

583
00:41:51,214 --> 00:41:53,249
And they mocked God and mocked religion.

584
00:41:53,249 --> 00:41:56,532
And at one point in the revival,
they called for Duncan Campbell.

585
00:41:56,532 --> 00:42:03,030
They said, "Please come, we're afraid
these men are going to lose their minds."

586
00:42:03,030 --> 00:42:10,244
What is that? That's the hope that
God came and convicted of sin. (P)

587
00:42:10,244 --> 00:42:14,881
Well, when God comes He's present and
there's a sense of His presence.

588
00:42:14,881 --> 00:42:21,984
Secondly, when God comes
down, mighty things happen.

589
00:42:21,984 --> 00:42:24,802
"Oh that Thou wouldst rend
the heavens and come down,

590
00:42:24,802 --> 00:42:27,834
that the mountains might
quake at Thy presence."

591
00:42:27,834 --> 00:42:30,908
Mighty things happen. Mountains quake.

592
00:42:30,908 --> 00:42:34,590
"As fire kindles the brushwood,
as fire causes water to boil,

593
00:42:34,590 --> 00:42:38,368
to make Thy Name known
to thine adversaries,

594
00:42:38,368 --> 00:42:41,746
that the nations may
tremble at Thy presence.

595
00:42:41,746 --> 00:42:47,461
When Thou didst awesome things
which we did not expect.

596
00:42:47,461 --> 00:42:51,337
Thou didst come down, the
mountains quaked at Thy presence.

597
00:42:51,337 --> 00:42:54,922
From of old they have not
heard nor perceived by ear,

598
00:42:54,922 --> 00:42:59,058
neither has the eye seen
a God besides Thee who

599
00:42:59,070 --> 00:43:03,046
acts in behalf of the
one who waits for Him."

600
00:43:03,046 --> 00:43:06,194
When God comes down, mighty things happen.

601
00:43:06,194 --> 00:43:09,845
And time would literally fail us to
tell of some of the mighty things

602
00:43:09,846 --> 00:43:11,391
that have happened in church history. (P)

603
00:43:11,391 --> 00:43:15,240
Mack mentioned the Welsh Revival in 1904.

604
00:43:15,240 --> 00:43:18,301
Evan Roberts was a young
man in his mid-20s.

605
00:43:18,302 --> 00:43:23,672
He comes in there to his roommate
(he's been weeping profusely),

606
00:43:23,672 --> 00:43:31,670
and he says, "See it. God showed me
that He's going to save 100,000 people."

607
00:43:31,670 --> 00:43:35,038
And it looks like He did that,
because in the first six months

608
00:43:35,038 --> 00:43:39,425
there were 80,000 added to the
church rolls, in a little nation.

609
00:43:39,425 --> 00:43:45,891
And this went on for two or three years.
A hundred thousand people.

610
00:43:45,891 --> 00:43:49,584
God does mighty things when he comes down.

611
00:43:49,584 --> 00:43:52,269
And in the case of the
Welsh Revival (some of

612
00:43:52,281 --> 00:43:54,803
you may have heard some
of these stories);

613
00:43:54,803 --> 00:43:58,108
in Swansea, one of the
largest cities, there

614
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:01,215
were no cases to try,
there was no crime.

615
00:44:01,215 --> 00:44:05,144
The judge didn't have anything to do,
the police didn't have anything to do.

616
00:44:05,144 --> 00:44:10,103
And so the police formed
quartets to sing and

617
00:44:10,115 --> 00:44:14,870
also they directed
traffic to the meetings.

618
00:44:14,870 --> 00:44:19,859
And in the mines, so many of
the miners had been converted

619
00:44:19,859 --> 00:44:21,404
and they wouldn't curse anymore.

620
00:44:21,405 --> 00:44:23,693
And the horses, who were
used to being cursed at,

621
00:44:23,705 --> 00:44:25,867
didn't know what orders
they were being given.

622
00:44:25,867 --> 00:44:30,241
They couldn't get the horses
to pull the coal carts.

623
00:44:30,241 --> 00:44:33,246
That's God coming, you see.

624
00:44:33,247 --> 00:44:37,398
We're not talking about special meetings.

625
00:44:37,398 --> 00:44:40,536
I mean, you can have
a hundred of those

626
00:44:40,548 --> 00:44:44,170
so-called 'revivals' and
nobody even knows it.

627
00:44:44,170 --> 00:44:49,185
But when the Holy Spirit comes down,
even on a hundred and twenty people,

628
00:44:49,185 --> 00:44:54,321
it turned the world upside down. (P)

629
00:44:57,083 --> 00:44:59,495
William Williams, this is from the 1700s,

630
00:44:59,496 --> 00:45:03,549
I just want to read a variety of
things for you just to get a feel,

631
00:45:03,549 --> 00:45:08,305
so you'll know this is not
just one or two things.

632
00:45:08,305 --> 00:45:11,457
William Williams in Wales,
in the 1700s, he says,

633
00:45:11,457 --> 00:45:13,392
"The tone of the whole
district was changed.

634
00:45:13,392 --> 00:45:16,922
Instead of playing games on the Sabbath,
dancing, cursing, swearing,

635
00:45:16,922 --> 00:45:20,469
blaspheming the name of God,
singing unworthy songs,

636
00:45:20,469 --> 00:45:25,915
empty talk, gossiping, collecting stories,
lying and persecuting God's people;

637
00:45:25,915 --> 00:45:30,227
instead of all this, the shepherds
would sing hymns in the valleys,

638
00:45:30,227 --> 00:45:32,522
the ploughman and the driver of his oxen

639
00:45:32,522 --> 00:45:37,242
often singing psalms and spiritual
songs together in the fields.

640
00:45:37,242 --> 00:45:39,691
The maidens, the children,
and the old men together

641
00:45:39,691 --> 00:45:44,071
discussing happily about the
works of the Spirit of grace."

642
00:45:44,071 --> 00:45:48,931
Whole communities changed. (P)

643
00:45:53,502 --> 00:45:57,623
Duncan Campbell, in the
Hebrides Revival, said that

644
00:45:57,635 --> 00:46:01,370
you could be walking along
the roads at night,

645
00:46:01,370 --> 00:46:05,775
and there were sobs coming
from the sides of the road

646
00:46:05,775 --> 00:46:11,502
as people were crying out to
God for mercy along the roads.

647
00:46:11,502 --> 00:46:17,496
Six hundred people spontaneously gather
in a field, crying out to God for mercy.

648
00:46:17,496 --> 00:46:20,010
That's the kind of thing that happens.

649
00:46:20,011 --> 00:46:26,184
People would find themselves just
gathering, not knowing why they came,

650
00:46:26,184 --> 00:46:30,923
crying out to God for mercy. (P)

651
00:46:30,923 --> 00:46:36,439
Dr. Charles Culpepper was a
Baptist missionary to China.

652
00:46:36,439 --> 00:46:39,201
I heard towards the end of his life

653
00:46:39,201 --> 00:46:41,807
he shared some about the
revival there in China.

654
00:46:41,807 --> 00:46:44,819
And it was like a man gazing
through the back of the building

655
00:46:44,819 --> 00:46:46,646
as he would talk about it.

656
00:46:46,646 --> 00:46:51,870
He said, "More was accomplished in two
weeks than in ten years prior to that."

657
00:46:51,870 --> 00:46:53,627
God just saving people.

658
00:46:53,627 --> 00:46:58,420
I mean, we can't crack hearts open.
We can't do it.

659
00:46:58,420 --> 00:47:05,421
When the Holy Spirit comes in any
measure, things are different.

660
00:47:07,453 --> 00:47:12,237
When God comes, awesome things happen. (P)

661
00:47:12,237 --> 00:47:17,776
This was from revival in the
Congo, with Helen Roseveare,

662
00:47:17,776 --> 00:47:22,377
who is a very proper little
British medical doctor.

663
00:47:22,378 --> 00:47:26,021
She's not some wild-eyed fanatic.

664
00:47:26,021 --> 00:47:30,411
And I read part of an interview with her.

665
00:47:30,411 --> 00:47:33,699
The interviewer says,
"What can you remember of

666
00:47:33,711 --> 00:47:37,079
the first experiences you
had of revival power?"

667
00:47:37,079 --> 00:47:42,856
She said, "The first day revival came
to Ibambi, the actual building shook.

668
00:47:42,856 --> 00:47:44,859
We were sitting in the Bible School hall.

669
00:47:44,859 --> 00:47:46,777
It was 7 PM on a Friday night.

670
00:47:46,777 --> 00:47:50,529
Jack Scholes, our field leader, had
just come back from a trip in the south

671
00:47:50,529 --> 00:47:53,136
and he had seen revival down there.

672
00:47:53,136 --> 00:47:59,122
He stood up to speak about the revival
and started to read from Scriptures.

673
00:47:59,122 --> 00:48:04,197
Suddenly - isn't that how
often that word appears?

674
00:48:04,197 --> 00:48:06,683
He gets up to start
reading from the Bible -

675
00:48:06,683 --> 00:48:13,809
suddenly we heard a hurricane storm.
It was frightening!" (P)

676
00:48:13,809 --> 00:48:16,479
"Not what you expected?"
the interviewer says.

677
00:48:16,479 --> 00:48:20,633
Just to see things that we looked not for.

678
00:48:20,633 --> 00:48:23,785
"No! None of us stopped to
think that this was strange

679
00:48:23,786 --> 00:48:29,859
because you don’t get hurricane storms in
July (we have them in February or March).

680
00:48:29,859 --> 00:48:35,205
We heard this hurricane coming and the
elders began to take the shutters down

681
00:48:35,205 --> 00:48:39,188
(the shutters are not very strong
and fall in and can hurt people.)

682
00:48:39,188 --> 00:48:41,056
We looked out and it was moonlight,

683
00:48:41,056 --> 00:48:47,277
and the palm trees were standing
absolutely still against the moonlit sky.

684
00:48:47,277 --> 00:48:50,794
It should have been pitch-black and stormy.

685
00:48:50,794 --> 00:48:53,763
Then the building shook,
and the storm lanterns

686
00:48:53,775 --> 00:48:56,631
down the centre of the
building moved around.

687
00:48:56,631 --> 00:49:01,469
There was a terrific noise and a
sense of external power around."

688
00:49:01,469 --> 00:49:07,027
You see? We're not talking about people
giving more of themselves to God.

689
00:49:07,027 --> 00:49:10,322
We're talking about God coming down.

690
00:49:10,322 --> 00:49:15,340
God comes down! He still comes down!

691
00:49:15,340 --> 00:49:17,155
He's done it in church history.

692
00:49:17,155 --> 00:49:21,222
He did on the day of Pentecost,
He did it repeatedly in the book of Acts,

693
00:49:21,222 --> 00:49:23,775
and He still does it!

694
00:49:23,775 --> 00:49:26,462
He's done it in this century.

695
00:49:26,462 --> 00:49:35,017
He's done it in the past hundred years
many times, on smaller scales. (P)

696
00:49:35,017 --> 00:49:37,125
Beloved, I'd like
to see it even on a

697
00:49:37,137 --> 00:49:39,760
small-enough scale as
this building right here.

698
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:43,913
I mean, we need to long for this.

699
00:49:43,913 --> 00:49:48,417
We need to be aware of it,
and we need to long for it.

700
00:49:48,417 --> 00:49:52,523
I won't read all this, but
she said to the question,

701
00:49:52,523 --> 00:49:55,964
"What was the strongest sense you
had around you at the time?"

702
00:49:55,964 --> 00:50:00,135
What do you think? Conviction of sin.

703
00:50:00,136 --> 00:50:02,572
She said, "We didn't leave
the hall that whole weekend.

704
00:50:02,572 --> 00:50:06,098
Most of the time, God was
dealing with our sins.

705
00:50:06,099 --> 00:50:07,747
Some needed help from the pastors

706
00:50:07,748 --> 00:50:10,076
and moved around with much
wisdom and encouragement.

707
00:50:10,076 --> 00:50:13,833
Then joy struck the repentant
sinners and the pastor's moved on.

708
00:50:13,833 --> 00:50:22,281
It was remarkable what discernment was
given to these uneducated pastors." (P)

709
00:50:25,956 --> 00:50:33,073
One more. This is a revival in
Kwasizabantu in Southern Africa.

710
00:50:33,073 --> 00:50:41,039
I think it was maybe the end of
the 1960s - not that long ago.

711
00:50:41,039 --> 00:50:47,569
Erlo Stegen was the man that was
being used in this revival.

712
00:50:47,569 --> 00:50:53,891
And he says, "After about a week,
God came down." That was the quote.

713
00:50:53,891 --> 00:51:02,400
"Suddenly there was a mighty wind, almost
like compressed air which is released.

714
00:51:02,400 --> 00:51:06,678
It felt like a wind which
blew right through them.

715
00:51:06,678 --> 00:51:11,315
The building shook and everyone was
aware that God was in their midst.

716
00:51:11,315 --> 00:51:16,944
Erlo buried his face in his hands,
deeply aware of his own unworthiness.

717
00:51:16,944 --> 00:51:20,233
He felt that he should bow down low.

718
00:51:20,233 --> 00:51:25,946
Everybody was on their knees.
No one could grasp it." (P)

719
00:51:25,946 --> 00:51:28,175
Now this is what happened:

720
00:51:28,175 --> 00:51:35,635
The first thing, a Zulu woman - a witch -
appeared unexpectedly at Mapumulo.

721
00:51:35,635 --> 00:51:39,102
To Erlo's surprise question
of what she was looking for,

722
00:51:39,102 --> 00:51:44,226
she answered, "I'm looking for Jesus.
Can He set me free?

723
00:51:44,226 --> 00:51:50,314
I'm bound with the chains of hell.
Can He break these chains?"

724
00:51:50,314 --> 00:51:52,459
Erlo could not believe his eyes and ears.

725
00:51:52,459 --> 00:51:57,507
For 12 years he had
tried, often for weeks on

726
00:51:57,519 --> 00:52:02,799
end, to lead a witch to
Christ but to no avail.

727
00:52:02,799 --> 00:52:04,779
And here, suddenly, as if out of the blue,

728
00:52:04,780 --> 00:52:10,708
one comes and says that she wants to
be set free from the chains of Satan.

729
00:52:10,708 --> 00:52:13,061
He asked her, "Who spoke to you?"

730
00:52:13,062 --> 00:52:15,858
"No one," was the answer.

731
00:52:15,858 --> 00:52:19,736
"Who brought you the message of Jesus?"

732
00:52:19,737 --> 00:52:21,738
"No one."

733
00:52:21,739 --> 00:52:26,116
"But who invited you to come here?"
he asked with rising amazement.

734
00:52:26,116 --> 00:52:28,764
The answer was again, "No one."

735
00:52:28,764 --> 00:52:31,052
Now how did she get there?

736
00:52:31,052 --> 00:52:33,101
"But," she asked, "why all these questions?

737
00:52:33,101 --> 00:52:39,322
If Jesus does not sent me free now,
I will die with hell as my destination."

738
00:52:39,322 --> 00:52:42,071
Led by Erlo, she confessed
her sins and made

739
00:52:42,083 --> 00:52:44,782
known her desire to
open her life to Jesus.

740
00:52:44,782 --> 00:52:49,904
Then she said, "Ask this Jesus to set me
free from the evil spirits within me." (P)

741
00:52:49,905 --> 00:52:52,770
Now that's the kind of thing God does.

742
00:52:52,771 --> 00:52:59,042
This woman was gloriously converted
and many other witches began to come.

743
00:52:59,042 --> 00:53:00,768
They would come in waves.

744
00:53:00,768 --> 00:53:06,412
Sometimes blind people coming in
waves and God healing miraculously.

745
00:53:06,412 --> 00:53:10,375
Many times there are no
miraculous healings and things,

746
00:53:10,375 --> 00:53:12,704
especially in places where
they don't need them.

747
00:53:12,704 --> 00:53:17,318
But when you're dealing in a
country that is in utter darkness,

748
00:53:17,318 --> 00:53:22,226
a lot of times God does
special miraculous things

749
00:53:22,238 --> 00:53:26,469
- healing people and
doing unusual things.

750
00:53:28,120 --> 00:53:30,280
When God comes down,
mighty things happen. (P)

751
00:53:30,280 --> 00:53:34,366
This is the last point:
When God comes down,

752
00:53:34,378 --> 00:53:38,021
it always far exceeds
our expectations.

753
00:53:38,021 --> 00:53:42,736
When God comes down nobody
says, "Is this all?"

754
00:53:42,736 --> 00:53:44,848
Nobody says that.

755
00:53:44,848 --> 00:53:56,200
They are so blown away by the reality of
God's presence that they're speechless.

756
00:53:56,200 --> 00:53:59,178
They said there was a sense of awe.

757
00:53:59,178 --> 00:54:07,405
People were afraid because God
was so real and powerful.

758
00:54:07,405 --> 00:54:09,294
There's no need to pretend anything.

759
00:54:09,294 --> 00:54:13,853
The reality of God is so
much greater than anything

760
00:54:13,865 --> 00:54:17,820
anyone has ever imagined
or experienced. (P)

761
00:54:17,820 --> 00:54:24,743
One more quote from this
account of the Welsh Revival.

762
00:54:28,791 --> 00:54:34,795
Telling about one of the meetings, it says,
"A noted minister, Reverend Thomas John,

763
00:54:34,796 --> 00:54:41,831
after the meeting, was found alone
in deep meditation in a field.

764
00:54:41,831 --> 00:54:44,484
One of the people who drew
near to him said, 'Mr John,

765
00:54:44,485 --> 00:54:49,535
was not the sight of the thousands, as they
silently prayed, a most impressive one?

766
00:54:49,535 --> 00:54:51,261
Did you ever see anything
to compare with it?'

767
00:54:51,261 --> 00:54:57,710
He said, 'I never saw one of them.
I saw no one but God.'

768
00:54:57,710 --> 00:55:01,065
Soon after, he was seen
leaving the field and a

769
00:55:01,077 --> 00:55:04,515
friend said, 'Where are
you going, Thomas John?'

770
00:55:04,515 --> 00:55:11,745
He said, 'Home. How dreadful is this place!
I must leave, I'm too weak to bear it.' "

771
00:55:11,745 --> 00:55:15,467
His earthen vessel was too
frail for such experiences.

772
00:55:15,467 --> 00:55:19,802
"Among the many lessons which
were learned on such occasions

773
00:55:19,802 --> 00:55:22,480
is that there must come a great change,

774
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:25,537
not only in the spiritual
characters but also

775
00:55:25,549 --> 00:55:28,352
in the physical frames
of God's children,

776
00:55:28,352 --> 00:55:32,794
before they'll be able to bear the
far more exceeding weight of glory.

777
00:55:32,794 --> 00:55:38,069
And people have a sense they're going to
die if God doesn't pull back a little.

778
00:55:38,069 --> 00:55:43,355
And God is going to have
to give us new bodies to

779
00:55:43,367 --> 00:55:48,877
be able to bear a fuller
glimpse of His glory." (P)

780
00:55:50,841 --> 00:55:55,813
Well we can't make God do
this, but we can ask Him.

781
00:55:55,813 --> 00:55:58,305
And that's what Isaiah did in Isaiah 64,

782
00:55:58,305 --> 00:56:03,509
and that's what the early
church did in Acts 4.

783
00:56:03,509 --> 00:56:07,160
But one final encouragement
here, I love this one.

784
00:56:07,160 --> 00:56:10,577
William Williams, this is
from the 1700s in Wales,

785
00:56:10,577 --> 00:56:16,673
they started having special meetings
to pray for God to come in this way.

786
00:56:16,673 --> 00:56:26,150
And they were lifeless, hard-going
meetings, not a great deal of liberty.

787
00:56:26,150 --> 00:56:30,230
And he says, "At last, forced by cowardice,
unbelief, and the onslaughts of Satan,

788
00:56:30,230 --> 00:56:35,467
we resolved to give up
our special meetings.

789
00:56:35,467 --> 00:56:39,609
Now we were about to offer a final prayer,

790
00:56:39,609 --> 00:56:43,858
fully intending never again
to meet thus in fellowship.

791
00:56:43,858 --> 00:56:48,397
But it was when man reaches the lowest
depths of unbelief that God imparts faith.

792
00:56:48,397 --> 00:56:52,751
And when man has failed
then God reveals Himself.

793
00:56:52,751 --> 00:56:56,476
So, here, with us in such dire
straits on the brink of despair,

794
00:56:56,476 --> 00:56:59,540
with the door shut on
every hope of success,

795
00:56:59,552 --> 00:57:02,081
God Himself entered
into our midst."

796
00:57:02,081 --> 00:57:03,756
Don't you like the way this is?

797
00:57:03,756 --> 00:57:06,020
because you can get the
idea, "Boy, if we just...

798
00:57:06,020 --> 00:57:10,052
we're going to pray down, we're
going to make God do this.

799
00:57:10,052 --> 00:57:14,520
We'll fast, we'll do this, we'll do that."

800
00:57:14,520 --> 00:57:16,932
And here they are, they were
going to pray for a revival.

801
00:57:16,932 --> 00:57:22,151
And they were so weak and unbelieving
that they decided to give up.

802
00:57:22,151 --> 00:57:25,126
And that's when God came, because
He wanted to let it be known

803
00:57:25,126 --> 00:57:31,953
that it's not because of them,
it's not because of you. (P)

804
00:57:31,953 --> 00:57:34,928
It says, "God Himself
entered into our midst and

805
00:57:34,940 --> 00:57:37,744
the light of day from
on high dawned upon us.

806
00:57:37,744 --> 00:57:40,997
For one of the brethren,
the most timid of us all,

807
00:57:40,997 --> 00:57:46,599
the one who was strongest in his
belief that God would never visit us,

808
00:57:46,599 --> 00:57:51,017
while in prayer was stirred in his spirit
and laid hold powerfully on heaven

809
00:57:51,017 --> 00:57:53,651
as one who would never let go.

810
00:57:53,651 --> 00:57:58,913
His tongue spoke unusual words, his voice
was raised, his spirit was aflame.

811
00:57:58,913 --> 00:58:01,164
He pleaded, he cried to God, he struggled.

812
00:58:01,164 --> 00:58:04,269
He wrestled in earnest like Jacob
in the agony of his soul."

813
00:58:04,269 --> 00:58:07,895
God came and helped that man,

814
00:58:07,895 --> 00:58:13,815
and God began to pour out that spirit
of supplication on the others there.

815
00:58:13,815 --> 00:58:16,748
And he says, "This came to
pass, for there fell upon us

816
00:58:16,748 --> 00:58:18,820
the sweet breath of the love of the Lord.

817
00:58:18,820 --> 00:58:23,884
We were filled as if with the fullness
of the bulls and the horns of the altar.

818
00:58:23,884 --> 00:58:26,631
The fire was kindled, we
gave voice with our tongues,

819
00:58:26,631 --> 00:58:29,083
the cloud melted away, the sun shone.

820
00:58:29,083 --> 00:58:32,517
We drank of the fruit of the
vines of the promised land.

821
00:58:32,517 --> 00:58:34,578
We were made to rejoice.

822
00:58:34,578 --> 00:58:37,715
Gone was unbelief, gone guilt, gone fear.

823
00:58:37,715 --> 00:58:42,104
Gone a timid cowardly spirit,
lack of love, envy, suspicions,

824
00:58:42,104 --> 00:58:45,100
together with all the poisonous
worms that tormented us before.

825
00:58:45,100 --> 00:58:49,192
And in their place came love,
faith, hope, a joyful spirit,

826
00:58:49,192 --> 00:58:53,910
with the glorious multitude of the
graces of the Holy Spirit. (P)

827
00:58:53,910 --> 00:58:57,006
"Up till now the service
was only beginning;

828
00:58:57,006 --> 00:59:00,056
for prayer, singing, praise,
and blessing were redoubled

829
00:59:00,056 --> 00:59:03,213
and no one felt like
bringing things to an end.

830
00:59:03,213 --> 00:59:05,403
Some were weeping,
some praising, some

831
00:59:05,415 --> 00:59:07,956
singing, some filled
with heavenly laughter.

832
00:59:07,956 --> 00:59:14,444
And all full of wonder and love
and amazement at the Lord's work.

833
00:59:14,444 --> 00:59:16,621
To my mind, like the time of the apostles,

834
00:59:16,621 --> 00:59:22,562
when the Spirit descended from on
high on a handful of fearful people,

835
00:59:22,562 --> 00:59:26,240
and strengthened them mightily to
come out of their secret hiding place

836
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:29,270
into the midst of the streets of Jerusalem,

837
00:59:29,270 --> 00:59:32,557
and to declare the name of the
Lord before every tribe, tongue,

838
00:59:32,557 --> 00:59:38,700
and nation that had gathered together there
from the uttermost parts of the earth.

839
00:59:38,700 --> 00:59:42,466
As it was then, so it was here now." (P)

840
00:59:42,466 --> 00:59:46,585
That was the revival in Wales in the 1700s.

841
00:59:46,585 --> 00:59:52,980
I read that because we should be
encouraged to ask God and keep asking Him.

842
00:59:52,980 --> 00:59:57,698
I mean, there's a lot of things that we
don't know whether it's God's will or not.

843
00:59:57,698 --> 01:00:00,406
But when you come to talking
about the Holy Spirit,

844
01:00:00,406 --> 01:00:03,543
Jesus said, "I say to you,
Ask and keep on asking;

845
01:00:03,543 --> 01:00:07,014
knock and keep on knocking;
seek and keep on seeking:

846
01:00:07,014 --> 01:00:10,107
for everyone who asks receives,
and he who seeks finds,

847
01:00:10,107 --> 01:00:12,308
and to him who knocks it shall be opened.

848
01:00:12,308 --> 01:00:15,338
If you, being evil, know how to
give good gifts to your children,

849
01:00:15,345 --> 01:00:20,978
how much more shall your heavenly Father
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?"

850
01:00:20,979 --> 01:00:25,013
Beloved, we should not
have a prayer meeting

851
01:00:25,025 --> 01:00:28,892
where we don't ask God
to come in this way

852
01:00:28,892 --> 01:00:31,095
and pour out His Spirit.

853
01:00:31,095 --> 01:00:35,117
I mean, He encouraged us to do that.
He says, "How much more..."

854
01:00:35,117 --> 01:00:38,587
We desperately need the Holy Spirit.

855
01:00:38,587 --> 01:00:42,342
Mercy drops around us are falling,
but for the showers we plead.

856
01:00:42,342 --> 01:00:47,083
I mean, think of what it would
be if God would have all of us

857
01:00:47,083 --> 01:00:50,446
to go back to our homes to
be praying in a fresh way

858
01:00:50,446 --> 01:00:56,485
for an outpouring of God's Spirit,
for God to come down. (P)

859
01:00:57,477 --> 01:01:02,072
I was with a brother in Iowa
when I was a college student,

860
01:01:02,072 --> 01:01:05,053
who has prayed for many years for revival.

861
01:01:05,053 --> 01:01:08,068
And it hasn't happened
yet, but I know those

862
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:10,636
prayers are stored
up in God's bottle.

863
01:01:10,636 --> 01:01:16,951
God puts those things away and He
stores them and He hears them.

864
01:01:16,951 --> 01:01:21,975
But I can remember times when 3 or 4
of us college guys would be with him,

865
01:01:21,975 --> 01:01:25,779
and he would be weeping
with his hands in the

866
01:01:25,791 --> 01:01:29,525
air, saying, "Oh God,
pour out your Spirit."

867
01:01:29,525 --> 01:01:33,292
We need to be doing that. We
need to be crying out to God.

868
01:01:33,292 --> 01:01:37,585
He'd always quote that
verse where God says,

869
01:01:37,597 --> 01:01:41,520
"I will pour floods
upon the dry ground.

870
01:01:41,520 --> 01:01:44,929
I'll pour out My Spirit."

871
01:01:44,930 --> 01:01:47,521
One night he was quoting
that and crying out,

872
01:01:47,522 --> 01:01:51,794
he's saying, "God, You said that
You'd send the rain upon us.

873
01:01:51,794 --> 01:01:54,119
You'd send the floods upon us..."

874
01:01:54,119 --> 01:01:57,446
And then lightning and thunder
started crashing all around us,

875
01:01:57,446 --> 01:02:02,919
and a deluge that you could
hardly hear his prayers any more.

876
01:02:02,919 --> 01:02:06,055
And I just felt like God's just
saying, "I'm listening to you.

877
01:02:06,055 --> 01:02:10,272
It's not going to happen
yet, but I can hear

878
01:02:10,284 --> 01:02:14,231
you, I'm able to do this.
I'm listening."

879
01:02:14,231 --> 01:02:19,979
He has been pleased to do this
repeatedly down through church history.

880
01:02:19,979 --> 01:02:26,605
And, like I said, He doesn't do
it just on a backslidden people,

881
01:02:26,605 --> 01:02:28,577
and He certainly doesn't
do it on a worthy people,

882
01:02:28,577 --> 01:02:33,194
but He does do it on His people
- a dependent, needy people.

883
01:02:33,194 --> 01:02:38,230
Not because we're worthy of
it, but because He's good.

884
01:02:38,230 --> 01:02:40,880
Amen. That's all I have.