Väckelse Konferansen 2007
August 1st, 2007
CANTON, August 1st, 2007 - Will God send another great awakening? Can revival still change nations? These are the questions that Greg Gordon, a 27 year old Bible student from Toronto, Ontario, earnestly seeks answers for. Greg is the founder and moderator of www.sermonindex.net, a website dedicated to the preservation and propagation of vintage audio preaching from the former generations, and has offered over 8 million sermon downloads since its inception in December 2002. Since the beginning of this vision there has a been a genuine burden to see the sovereign act of authentic revival occur in the Church of Jesus Christ today. It is from this burden that the conviction for a Revival Conference was implanted into this young man?s heart. Now, five years later, this conviction is a reality. This October, hundreds of Christians from all across the globe will be gathering together in one place to seek the Lord regarding this crucial inquiry, pleading with God to rend the heavens and send another Great Awakening. The following is an excerpt from the simple yet profound website, www.revivalconference.com:
"There are over 10,000 conferences that happen every year in America. The 'Revival Conference' is not to be just another conference but an honest, sincere, earnest plea for the desperate need of revival in North America. There is no cost to attend the event. There will be a minimal amount of materials sold. There will be no big bands. The conference will have the chief object to be God-glorifying. The speakers will come on their own accord trusting God for provision. There will be no emphasis on money during the event. The event will be a simple, apostolic, yearning for a genuine biblical revival in our day."
And not only is the burden of this conference striking, but how the conference itself has come into being is equally remarkable. With very little resources, promotion or marketing, the Revival Conference has over 500 registered attendees to date with over 100 of them being pastors and ministry leaders! Represented at the conference will be ten different countries from throughout the world. On top of that, the speakers coming to the conference are veteran preachers, authors and pastors from various Christian backgrounds who share the same burdened passion to see genuine revival in the Body of Christ today.
Revival Conference is hosted by the ministry of www.sermonindex.net and is an inter-denominational event; therefore all are welcome to attend.
When asking Greg about the initial vision of the conference, he replied: ?I simply said that if this event would be from God, the building would have to be provided freely, the speakers must come freely, and there would be no cost to attend the event. All three of these things have become an actuality. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt God's hand is in this. We are not coming to a conference to hear about God? we are coming to meet the living God. My prayer is that by God?s grace lives will never be the same.?
The conference is offering free web-casting to churches and individuals as well as free on-demand downloads of all sessions. There is no excuse to not be a part of this unique, God centered, important event. Pre-register for the event and get more details at: www.revivalconference.com
download a printable pdf of this press release:
http://www.sermonindex.net/revival/pressrelease_revivalconference.pdf
The True Gospel and the False by Zac Poonen
Christians are generally speaking, categorized into two groups as follows:
(1) "Roman Catholics" and "Protestants" - depending on birth.
(2) "Episcopal" (conformist) and "Free church" (non-conformist) - depending on church-pattern.
(3) "Born again Christians" and "Nominal Christians" - depending on an "experience";
(4) "Evangelicals" and "Liberals" - depending on doctrine.
(5) "Charismatics" and "Non-charismatics" - depending on "speaking in tongues".
(6) "Full-time Christian workers" and "Secular workers" - depending on profession.
There could be other such categorizations too. But none of these categorizations deal with the root of the problem that our Lord came to solve.
Many know that "Christ died for our sins" (1 Cor.15:3). But many do not know that the Bible says that Christ also died "that we should no longer live for ourselves but for Him" (2 Cor.5:15).
A more Scriptural way of categorizing Christians therefore would be as follows: "Those who live for themselves" and "Those who live for Christ"; or "Those who seek their own" and "Those who seek the things of Christ" or "Those who seek earthly things first" and "Those who seek the kingdom of God first"; or "Those who love money" and "Those who love God". (Jesus said it was impossible to love both -Lk.16:13)
But I have never heard of such a categorization being used. This categorization deals with the Christian's inner life and private walk with God, whereas the methods mentioned earlier deal with the external details of his life. Yet it is in this latter way that heaven categorizes Christians. And if that be the case, then this is the only categorization that matters! In this method, others cannot categorize us. We have to categorize ourselves - for no one but we ourselves know our inner motivations and desires. Even our wives may not be aware what we are living for.
Our Lord did not come primarily to give people a doctrine, or a church-pattern or to make them speak in tongues or even to give them an experience!
He came to "save us from sin". He came to lay the axe to the root of the tree. And the root of sin is : Being centered in ourselves, seeking our own and doing our own will. If we do not permit the Lord to axe and uproot this "root" from our lives, we will be Christians only superficially. Satan may however deceive us into imagining that we belong to a higher class than other Christians, because of our doctrine or our experience or our church-pattern!
Satan doesn't care even if we have the right doctrine, experience and church-pattern, so long as we continue to "live for ourselves" (This, by the way, is just another phrase for "living in sin"!!). Christendom today is filled with Christians who seek their own and live for themselves, who are yet convinced that God views them as superior to other Christians, merely because of doctrinal differences or church-pattern or "experiences". This shows what a great work Satan has succeeded in doing in Christendom.
In John 6:38, our Lord said that He came from heaven to earth:
(1) To deny His human will (that He had acquired, when He came to earth as a Man), and (2) To do the will of His Father, as a Man. Thereby He became our example.
Throughout Jesus' earthly life -- during all His 331/2; years - He denied his own will and did His Father's will. And He told His disciples clearly that those who wanted to be His disciples would have to go the same way. He came to hit at the root of sin in our lives - "doing our own will" - and to deliver us from that.
In the realm of science, for thousands of years, man made the mistake of imagining that the earth was the center of the universe. It looked like that to human eyes - because the sun, moon and stars did indeed appear to be revolving around the earth once every 24 hours. It took the courage of a man like Copernicus to question this popular notion, just about 450 years ago, and to show that it was utterly false and that the earth was not even the center of the solar system, leave alone the universe. The earth, he showed was created to be centered in the sun. As long as man had the wrong center, his scientific calculations and deductions were wrong - because his center was wrong. But once man discovered the right center, then these calculations and deductions turned out right.
It is the same with us when we remain "self-centered" instead of being "God-centered". Our understanding of the Bible and of God's perfect will (our calculations and deductions) will then be wrong. But just as men were convinced for over 5000 years that they were right (as we saw above), we too may imagine that we are right! But actually, we will be 100% wrong.
This is what we see even among many "good Christians" today. They have so many different interpretations of the same Bible - and yet each one is convinced that his interpretation alone is right and everyone else's is wrong. The others, they will say are "deceived". Why is this so? Because they've got their center wrong.
Man was created to be centered in God and not in himself. And when Christians have got their center wrong, their "gospel" will be wrong too. Basically, there are only two gospels being preached today - one man-centered and the other God-centered.
The man-centered gospel promises man that God will give him everything he needs to make his life on earth comfortable and will also give him a seat in heaven at the end of his life. Man is told that Jesus will forgive all his sins, heal all his diseases, bless and prosper him materially, solve all his earthly problems, etc., etc.
Self still remains at the center of such a man's life, and God revolves around him - as his servant - to answer his every prayer and to give him whatever he wants!! All that he has to do is "believe" and "claim every material blessing in Jesus' Name"!!
This is a false gospel, because no mention is made of "repentance". Repentance is what John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul, Peter and all the apostles preached first of all. And repentance, unfortunately, is what is not preached today, even last of all!!
The God-centered gospel, on the other hand, calls upon man to repent. It explains that "repentance" means:
Turning FROM Self as the center of one's life, from doing one's own will, from walking along one's self-chosen way, from loving money, and from loving the world and the things in the world (the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life), etc., and
Turning TO God, loving Him with one's whole heart, making Him the Centre of one's life and doing His will henceforth etc.,
Faith in Christ's death on the cross can forgive a man his sins only when he has repented. Then he can receive the power of the Holy Spirit empower him to deny himself daily so that he can live a God-centered life. This is the gospel that Jesus and the apostles preached.
The false gospel makes the gate wide and the way broad (easy to walk along, because one does not have to deny one's Self or stop living for one's own interests or stop seeking one's own gain). Millions attend meetings where such a false "gospel" is preached. And many enter through this gate and walk along this way, imagining that it leads to life. But it actually leads to destruction. The evangelists of this gospel however gloat in, and report about the large numbers of people who "raised their hands and made decisions for Christ" in their meetings!! But it is all a deception. Although some are indeed genuinely converted in such meetings, because of their sincerity, many such "converts" end up becoming "twofold children of hell" (Matt.23:15) - deceived about their true state.
The true gospel however, makes the gate small and the way narrow - not smaller or narrower than Jesus Himself made it, as some "super-spiritual" cultists do, but just the same size as Jesus made it. Few there be, that find this way to life. There is not much for the evangelists of this gospel to report about, and the statistics are not impressive. But this gospel leads people to the Lord Jesus and to heaven.
"Be careful how you listen. Whoever obeys what he has heard, to him more light and understanding will be given. But whoever does not obey what he has heard, even what light and understanding he thinks he has will be taken away from him." (Paraphrase of Luke 8:18).
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
unfaithful friend - Richard Baxter
A foolish physician he is, and a most unfaithful friend, that will let a sick man die for fear of troubling him; and cruel wretches are we to our friends, that will rather suffer them to go quietly to hell, then we will anger them, or hazard our reputation with them.
Baxter, Richard
Excerpts from David Brainerds Diary
Excerpts from his diary
Lord's Day, April 25. This morning I spent about two hours in secret duties and was enabled more than ordinarily to agonize for immortal souls. Though it was early in the morning and the sun scarcely shined at all, yet my body was quite wet with sweat. I felt much pressed now, as frequently of late, to plead for the meekness and calmness of the Lamb of God in my soul; and through divine goodness felt much of it this morning. Oh, it is a sweet disposition heartily to forgive all injuries done us; to wish our greatest enemies as well as we do our own souls! Blessed Jesus, may I daily be more and more conformed to Thee.
At night I was exceedingly melted with divine love and had some feeling sense of the blessedness of the upper world. Those words hung upon me with much divine sweetness, Psalm 84:7: "They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God." Oh, the near access that God sometimes gives us in our addresses to Him! This may well be termed appearing before God: it is so indeed, in the true spiritual sense, and in the sweetest sense. I think I have not had such power of intercession these many months, both for God's children and for dead sinners as I have had this evening. I wished and longed for the coming of my dear Lord: I longed to join the angelic hosts in praises, wholly free from imperfection. Oh, the blessed moment hastens! All I want is to be more holy, more like my dear Lord. Oh, for sanctification! My very soul pants for the complete restoration of the blessed image of my Saviour, that I may be fit for the blessed enjoyments and employments of the heavenly world.
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Monday, April 12. This morning the Lord was pleased to lift up the fight of His countenance upon me in secret prayer, and made the season very precious to my soul. Though I have been so depressed of late, respecting my hopes of future serviceableness in the cause of God, yet now I had much encouragement respecting that matter. I was especially assisted to intercede and plead for poor souls and for the enlargement of Christ's kingdom in the world, and for special grace for myself to fit me for special services. I felt exceedingly calm and quite resigned to God, respecting my future employment, when and where He pleased. My faith lifted me above the world and removed all those mountains that I could not look over of late.
I wanted not the favor of man to lean upon; for I knew Christ's favor was infinitely better, and that it was no matter when, nor where, nor how Christ should send me, nor what trials He should still exercise me with, if I might be prepared for His work and will. I now found revived, in my mind, the wonderful discovery of infinite wisdom in all the dispensations of God towards me, which I had a little before I met with my great trial at college; everything appeared full of divine wisdom.
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Tuesday, October 26. (At West Suffield) Underwent the most dreadful distresses, under a sense of my own unworthiness. It seemed to me I deserved rather to be driven out of the place than to have anybody treat me with any kindness, or come to hear me preach. Verily my spirits were so depressed at this time (as at many others) that it was impossible I should treat immortal souls with faithfulness. I could not deal closely and faithfully with them, I felt so infinitely vile in myself. Oh, what dust and ashes I am, to think of preaching the gospel to others! Indeed I never can be faithful for one moment, but shall certainly "daub with untempered mortar" if God do not grant me special help. In the evening I went to the meetinghouse, and it looked to me near as easy for one to rise out of the grave and preach, as for me. However, God afforded me some life and power, both in prayer and sermon, and was pleased to lift me up and show me that He could enable me to preach! Oh, the wonderful goodness of God to so vile a sinner! Returned to my quarters and enjoyed some sweetness in prayer alone, and mourned that I could not live more to God.
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hursday, November 3. Spent this day in secret fasting and prayer, from morning till night. Early in the morning, I had some small degree of assistance in prayer. Afterwards, read the story of Elijah the prophet, I Kings 17,18, and 19, and also 11 Kings 2 and 4. My soul was much moved observing the faith, zeal, and power of that holy man and how he wrestled with God in prayer. My soul then cried with Elisha, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah!" Oh, I longed for more faith! My soul breathed after God and pleaded with Him that a "double portion of that spirit," which was given to Elijah, might "rest on me.
That which was divinely refreshing and strengthening to my soul was that I saw that God is the same as He was in the days of Elijah. Was enabled to wrestle with God by prayer in a more affectionate, fervent, humble, intense, and importunate manner than I have for many months past. Nothing seemed too hard for God to perform; nothing too great for me to hope for from Him.
I had for many months entirely lost all hopes of being made instrumental of doing any special service for God in the world. It has appeared entirely impossible that one so black and vile should be thus employed for God. But at this time God was pleased to revive this hope.
Afterwards read the third chapter of Exodus and on to the twentieth, and saw more of the glory and majesty of God discovered in those chapters than ever I had seen before. Frequently in the meantime I fell on my knees and cried to God for the faith of Moses and for a manifestation of the divine glory. Especially the third and fourth, and part of the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters, were unspeakably sweet to my soul. My soul blessed God that He had shown Himself so gracious to His servants of old. The fifteenth chapter seemed to be the very language which my soul uttered to God in the season of my first spiritual comfort, when I had just got through the Red Sea, by a way that I had no expectation of.
Oh, how my soul then rejoiced in God! And now those things came fresh and lively to my mind. Now my soul blessed God afresh that He had opened that unthought-of-way to deliver me from the fear of the Egyptians, when I almost despaired of life.
I cried - Thomas Brooks
I cried
(Brooks, "A Word in Season to Suffering Saints")
The child has got many a kiss, and many a hug
?by crying.
"In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my
God for help. From His temple He heard my voice;
my cry came before Him, into His ears." Psalm 18:6
Prayer is the only means to supply all defects;
prayer gets all, and makes up for the loss of all.
It is not the length?but the strength of prayer;
it is not the labor of the lip?but the travail of the
heart?which prevails with God. It is not . . .
the arithmetic of our prayers?how many they are; nor
the rhetoric of our prayers?how eloquent they are; nor
the geometry of our prayers?how long they are; nor
the music of our prayers?how sweet they are; nor
the logic of our prayers?how methodical they are
?which will prevail with God. It is only fervency in
prayer, which will make a man prevalent with God.
Fervent prayer hits the mark, and pierces the walls
of heaven!
"In my anguish I cried to the Lord, and He
answered by setting me free." Psalm 118:5
A misery beyond all expression! - Thomas Brooks
(Thomas Brooks, "London's Lamentations" 1670)
"Then He will say to those on His left?Depart from Me,
you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for
the devil and his angels!" Matthew 25:41
This solemn sentence breathes out nothing but fire and
brimstone, terror and horror, dread and woe! The last
words that Christ will ever speak to the ungodly, will be:
the most tormenting and dreadful,
the most stinging and wounding,
the most killing and damning!
Here is utter rejection: "Depart from Me?Pack! Begone!
Get out of My sight! Let Me never more see your faces!"
"Depart from Me!" is the first and worst of that dreadful
sentence which Christ shall pass upon the ungodly at last.
Every syllable sounds horror and terror, grief and sorrow,
dread and astonishment?to all whom it concerns.
Certainly, the tears of hell are not sufficient to
bewail the loss of heaven!
Here is imprecation: "You who are cursed!"
"But Lord, if we must depart, let us depart blessed!"
"No! Depart?you who are cursed!" You shall be . . .
cursed in your bodies,
and cursed in your souls,
and cursed by God,
and cursed by Christ,
and cursed by angels,
and cursed by saints,
and cursed by devils,
and cursed by your wicked companions!
Yes, you shall now curse your very selves,
your very souls?that ever you have . . .
despised the gospel,
refused the offers of grace,
scorned Christ, and
neglected the means of your salvation!
O sinners, sinners?all your curses, all your maledictions
shall at last recoil upon your own souls! Now you curse
every person and thing which stand in the way of your
lusts, and which cross your designs. But at last, all the
curses of heaven and hell shall meet in their full power
and force upon you! Surely that man is eternally
cursed?who is cursed by Christ Himself!
"But, Lord, if we must depart, and depart cursed, oh let us
go into some good place!" "No! Depart into the eternal fire!"
Here is vengeance and continuance of it. You shall go into
fire, into eternal fire! The eternity of hell?is the hell of hell.
If all the fires that ever were in the world, were contracted
into one fire?how terrible would it be! Yet such a fire would
be but as 'painted fire' upon the wall?compared to the fire of
hell. It is a very sad spectacle to behold a malefactor's body
consumed little by little in a lingering fire. But ah, how sad,
how dreadful, would it be to experience what it is to lie in
unquenchable fire?not for a day, a month, or a year, or a
hundred or a thousand years?but forever and ever!
"If it were," says Cyril, "but for a thousand years, I could
bear it; but seeing it is for eternity?this frightens and
horrifies me!" "I am afraid of hell," says Isidore, "because
the worm there never dies, and the fire never goes out!"
To be tormented without end?this is that which goes
beyond all the bounds of desperation.
Grievous is the torment of the damned . . .
for the bitterness of the punishments;
but more grievous for the diversity of the punishments;
but most grievous for the eternity of the punishments!
To lie in everlasting torments,
to roar forever in anguish of heart,
to rage forever for madness of soul,
to weep, and grieve, and gnash the teeth forever
?is a misery beyond all expression!
Mark, everything that is conducible to the
torments of the damned, is eternal:
God who damns them is eternal!
The fire which torments them is eternal!
The prison and chains which hold them are eternal!
The worm which gnaws them is eternal!
The sentence which is upon them, shall be eternal!
Fire is the most furious of all elements, and therefore
the bodies of men cannot be more exquisitely tormented
than with fire. The bodies which sinned on earth, shall
be punished and tormented in hell. What can be more
grievous and vexatious, more afflicting and tormenting
to the bodies of men?than eternal fire? Oh, then, how
will the bodies of men endure to dwell in unquenchable
fire, to dwell in everlasting burnings! The brick-kilns of
Egypt, the fiery furnace of Babylon, are but as a spark,
compared to this tormenting hell, which has been
prepared of old to punish the bodies of sinners with.
"The sinners in Zion are terrified; trembling grips the
godless! Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire?
Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?" Is. 33:14
Wicked men, who are now the jolly fellows of the times,
shall one day go from burning?to burning; from burning
in sin?to burning in hell; from burning in flames of lusts
?to burning in flames of torment; except there be found
repentance on their side, and pardoning grace on God's side.
Surely, the serious thoughts of the agonies of hell
while people live?is one blessed way to keep them
from going into those torments after they die! Look!
as there is nothing more grievous than hell?so there
is nothing more profitable than the fear of hell.
"Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath!"
1 Thessalonians 1:10
"For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to
receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ."
1 Thessalonians 5:9
PRAYER By Leonard Ravenhill
There's nothing more transfiguring than prayer. People often ask, "Why do you insist on prayer so much?" The answer is very simple - because Jesus did. You could change the title of the Gospel according to St. Luke to the Gospel of Prayer. It's the prayer life of Jesus. The other evangelists say that Jesus was in the Jordan and the Spirit descended on Him as a dove - Luke says it was while He was praying that the Spirit descended on Him. The other evangelists say that Jesus chose 12 disciples - Luke says it was after He spent a night in prayer that He chose 12 disciples. The other evangelists say that Jesus died on a cross - Luke says that even when He was dying Jesus was praying for those who persecuted Him. The other evangelists say Jesus went on a mount and He was transfigured - Luke says it was while He was praying that He was transfigured. There's nothing more transfiguring than prayer. The Scriptures say that the disciples went to bed, but Jesus went to pray - as was His custom. It was His custom to pray. Now Jesus was the Son of God - He was definitely anointed for His ministry. If Jesus needed all that time in prayer, don't you and I need time in prayer? If Jesus needed it in every crisis, don't you and I need it in every crisis? The story goes that a group of tourists visiting a picturesque village saw an old man sitting by a fence. In a rather patronizing way, one of the visitors asked, "Were any great men born in this village?"
Without looking up the old man replied, "No, only babies." The greatest men were once babies. The greatest saints were once toddlers in the things of the Spirit. C. H. Spurgeon was converted at the age of 16 and began preaching in London at the age of 19. When he was 27, they built him a tabernacle seating 6,000 which he packed twice on Sundays - that's 12,000 - and once on Thursday nights. How? He waited on God. He got alone with God. He studied...and he prayed. Desperate Prayer God makes all His best people in loneliness. Do you know what the secret of praying is? Praying in secret. "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door..." (Matt. 6:6). You can't show off when the door's shut and nobody's there. You can't display your gifts. You can impress others, but you can't impress God. I Samuel 1:1-15 gives an account of the yearly trip Elkanah and his wife, Hannah, made to Shiloh to worship and sacrifice to the Lord.
During this time, Hannah had been distressed that she was not able to bear a son for her husband. This passage of Scripture gives quite a descriptive account of her time in prayer concerning the barrenness of her womb. It says that Hannah wept. More than this, she wept until she was sore. She poured out her soul before the Lord. Her heart was grieving; she was bitter of soul, provoked, and of a sorrowful spirit. Now that's a pretty good list of afflictions - sorrow, hardship, and everything else that came upon this woman. But the key to the whole situation is that she was a praying woman. In verse 20 it says that she reaped her reward. "And it came about in due time, after Hannah had conceived, that she gave birth to a son; and she named him Samuel, saying, 'Because I have asked him of the Lord.'" Now I say very often - and people don't like it - that God doesn't answer prayer. He answers desperate prayer! Your prayer life denotes how much you depend on your own ability, and how much you really believe in your heart when you sing, "Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling...." The more self- confidence you have, the less you pray.
The less self-confidence you have, the more you have to pray. What does the Scripture say? It says that God takes the lowly, the things that are not. Paul says in I Corinthians 1:28 that God takes the things that are not to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no flesh should glory in His presence. We need a bunch of "are nots" today. The Language of the Poor Prayer is the language of the poor. Over and over again David, the King of Israel, says, "Incline Thine ear, O Lord, and answer me; for I am afflicted and needy" (Psalm 86:1). And do you remember that one of the greatest psalms he wrote says, "This poor man cried and the Lord heard him..." (Psalm 34:6). The apostle Paul overwhelms me with his spirituality, his pedigree, his colossal intellect. Yet he says that he's very conscious that when he's weak, he is strong. He was always trying to prove to himself and to others that he was a nobody.
True prayer is a two-way communication. I speak to God and God speaks to me. I don't know how the Spirit makes communication - or why God needs me to pray - but that's how God works. "Get Up And Pray!" One day I was at a conference with Dr. V. Raymond Edman of Wheaton College, one of the greatest Christian educators in this country. He told us of an experience he had while he was in Ecuador as a missionary. He hadn't been there long before he was sick and dying. He was so near death that they had already dug his grave. He had great beads of sweat on his brow and there was a death rattle in his throat. But suddenly he sat straight up in bed and said to his wife, "Bring me my clothes!" Nobody knew what had happened. Many years later he was retelling the story in Boston. Afterward, a little old lady with a small, dog-eared, beaten-up book, approached him and asked, "What day did you say you were dying? What time was it in Ecuador? What time would it be in Boston?" When he answered her, her wrinkled face lit up. Pointing to her book, she said. "There it is, you see? At 2 a.m. God said to get up and pray - the devil's trying to kill Raymond Edman in Ecuador." And she'd gotten up and prayed. Duncan Campbell told the story of hearing a farmer in his field who was praying. He was praying about Greece. Afterward, he asked him why he was praying. The man said, "I don't know. I had a burden in the spirit and God said, 'You pray; there's someone in Greece that is in a bad situation.' I prayed until I got a release." Two or three years later the farmer was in a meeting listening to a missionary. The man described a time when he was working in Greece. He had been in serious trouble. The time? Two or three years ago. The men compared notes and discovered that it was the very same day that God had burdened a farmer, on a little island off the coast of Scotland, to pray for a man in Greece whose name he didn't even know. It may seem the Lord gives you strange things. I don't care. If the Lord tells you something, carry on with what the Lord tells you. Who Shall Ascend to the Hill of the Lord?" There's another experience Duncan Campbell told about when he was working in Scotland. "I couldn't preach," he said. "I couldn't get through to God. The heavens were solid. It was as though there was a 10 ft. ceiling of steel." So he quit trying to preach. He asked a young man named John Cameron to pray. The boy stood up and said, "What's the use of praying if we're not right with God?" He quoted the 24th Psalm, "Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?" You can't approach God unless your hands are clean, which means your relationships with others are clean and your heart is clean. "Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? He who has clean hands and a pure heart..."
(Psalm 24.3-4). After the boy recited Psalm 24 he began to pray. He prayed 10, 15, 20 minutes. Then he suddenly said, "Excuse me, Lord, while I resist the devil." He turned around and began to tell the devil where to go and how to get there. He fought for all he was worth. You talk about having on the armor of God and resisting the devil! When he finished resisting the devil, he finished his prayer. He prayed for 45 minutes! When he finished praying it was just as though God had pulled a little switch in heaven. The Spirit of God came down on that church, that community, on the dance hall at the other end of town, and the tavern on this end of town. Revival was born in that prayer! At the end of Malachi it says, "And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly (that's the word I like, suddenly) come to his temple" (Malachi 3:1). Remember what it says about the shepherds? They were watching their flocks by night when suddenly there was the sound of the heavenly host. Do you remember a bunch of men that had been waiting in the upper room? Suddenly the Holy Spirit came on them in that room.
There's a date in history that I love very much. It was Wednesday, August 13, 1737. A little group of people in Moravia were waiting in a prayer meeting. At 11:00 suddenly the Holy Spirit came. Do you know what happened? The prayer meeting that began at 11:00 lasted 100 years! That's right. That prayer room was not empty for a century! It's the longest prayer among men and women that I know of. Even children six and seven years old travailed in prayer for countries the names of which they couldn't even spell. Why We Don't Have Revival In an old town in Ireland they'll show you with reverence a place where four young men met night after night after night praying for revival. In Wales, there's a place in the hills where three or four young men only 18 or 19 years old met and prayed night after night. They wouldn't let God go; they would not take no for an answer. As far as humanly possible they prayed a revival into birth. If you're thinking of revival at your church without any inconvenience, forget it. Revival costs a lot. I can give you one simple reason why we don't have revival in America. Because we're content to live without it.
We're not seeking God - we're seeking miracles, we're seeking big crusades, we're seeking blessings.
In Numbers 11, Moses said to God, "You're asking me to carry a burden I can't handle. Do something or kill me!" Do you love America enough to say, "God, send revival or kill me"? Do you think it's time we changed Patrick Henry's prayer from, "Give me liberty or give me death," to "Give me revival or let me die"? In the 30th chapter of Genesis, Rachael goes to Jacob and throws herself down in despair. She says, "Give me children or else I die." Are you willing to throw yourself down before God to seek the spiritual birth of spiritual children in our country? People say, "I'm filled with the Holy Spirit." If the coming of the Spirit didn't revolutionize your prayer life, you'd better check on it. I'm not so sure you got what God wanted you to get. We've said that prayer changes things. No! Prayer doesn't change things. Prayer changes people and they change things. We all want Gabriel to do the job. God says do it yourself - with My sufficiency and My strength.
We need to get like this woman, Hannah. What did she do? She wept, she was grieved, she said she had a complaint, she fasted - and she prayed. Jesus, the anointed of God, made prayer His custom. Paul, with his background and intellect, depended on prayer because he said he was weak. David, the king, called himself a poor man and cried to the Lord. Hannah prayed for a son and gave birth to a prophet. The prayers of a handful of young men sparked revival. There's nothing more transfiguring than prayer.
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Calvanism VS Arminianism
And I'll never forget the advice he gave me. At the time I thought it was rather inconclusive and not too helpful. But I listened carefully. He said, "My son, when you get to college you're going to find that all of the boys will be gathered in a room discussing and arguing over Arminianism and Calvinism night after night after night. I'll tell you what to do, Cliff. Go to your room and meet God. At the end of four years you'll be way down the line and they'll still be where they started, because greater minds than yours have wrestled with this problem and have not come up with satisfactory conclusions. Instead, learn to know God." (emphasis mine)
Cliff Westergren
Wurmbrant quotes
"This book is written not so much with ink, as with the blood of bleeding hearts." Tortured For Christ Tortured For Christ
"The language of love and the language of seduction are the same. The one who wishes a girl for a wife and the one who wishes her for only a night both say the words, ?I love you.? Jesus has told us to discern between the language of seduction and the language of love, and to know the wolves clad in sheepskin from the real sheep." Tortured For Christ
"When Christians in free countries win a soul for Christ, the new believer may become a member of a quietly living church. But when those in captive nations win someone, we know that he may have to go to prison and that his children may become orphans. The joy of having brought someone to Christ is always mixed with this feeling that there is a price that must be paid." Tortured For Christ
"As there are many who believe they are Christians and in reality are not, we found that among the Russians there are many who believe they are atheists, but in reality they are not." Tortured For Christ
"We should never stop at having won a soul for Christ. By this, we have done only half the work. Every soul won for Christ must be made to be a soul-winner." Tortured For Christ
"Men asked, 'How is it that a God of love permits the triumph of evil?'... The Christian faith has an answer to such questions. For instance, Jesus told us about Lazarus, a poor beggar, oppressed as we were oppressed?dying, hungry, his wounds being licked by dogs?but in the end, angels took him to Abraham?s bosom." Tortured For Christ
"When a man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil, there is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil that is in man." Tortured For Christ
"I am very sorry if a crocodile eats a man, but I can?t reproach the crocodile. He is not a moral being. So no reproaches can be made to the Communists. Communism has destroyed any moral sense in them. They boasted that they had no pity in their hearts. I learned from them. As they allowed no place for Jesus in their hearts, I decided I would leave not the smallest place for Satan in mine." Tortured For Christ
"If the heart is cleansed by the love of Jesus Christ, and if the heart loves Him, one can resist all tortures." Tortured For Christ
"God will judge us not according to how much we endured, but how much we could love." Tortured For Christ
"The tortures and brutality continued without interruption. When I lost consciousness or became too dazed to give the torturers any further hopes of confession, I would be returned to my cell. There I would lie, untended and half dead, to regain a little strength so they could work on me again. Many died at this stage, but somehow my strength always managed to return. In the ensuing years, in several different prisons, they broke four vertebrae in my back, and many other bones. They carved me in a dozen places. They burned and cut eighteen holes in my body. When my family and I were ransomed out of Romania and brought to Norway, doctors in Oslo, seeing all this and the scars in my lungs from tuberculosis, declared that my being alive today is a pure miracle! According to their medical books, I should have been dead for years. I know myself that it is a miracle. God is a God of miracles. I believe God performed this wonder so that you could hear my voice crying out on behalf of the Underground Church in persecuted countries. He allowed one to come out alive and cry aloud the message of your suffering, faithful brethren." Tortured For Christ
"It was strictly forbidden to preach to other prisoners, as it is in captive nations today. It was understood that whoever was caught doing this received a severe beating. A number of us decided to pay the price for the privilege of preaching, so we accepted their terms. It was a deal: we preached and they beat us. We were happy preaching; they were happy beating us?so everyone was happy." Tortured For Christ
"The following scene happened more times than I can remember. A brother was preaching to the other prisoners when the guards suddenly burst in, surprising him halfway through a phrase. They hauled him down the corridor to their beating room. After what seemed an endless beating, they brought him back and threw him?bloody and bruised?on the prison floor. Slowly, he picked up his battered body, painfully straightened his clothing and said, 'Now, brethren, where did I leave off when I was interrupted?' He continued his gospel message! I have seen beautiful things!" Tortured For Christ
"One great lesson arose from all the beatings, tortures, and butchery of the Communists: that the spirit is master of the body. We felt the torture, but it often seemed as something distant and far removed from the spirit which was lost in the glory of Christ and His presence with us. When we were given one slice of bread a week and dirty soup every day, we decided we would faithfully ?tithe? even then. Every tenth week we took the slice of bread and gave it to weaker brethren as our ?tithe? to the Master." Tortured For Christ
"If a poor man is a great lover of music, he gives his last dollar to listen to a concert. He is then without money, but he does not feel frustrated. He has heard beautiful things. I don?t feel frustrated to have lost many years in prison. I have seen beautiful things. I myself have been among the weak and insignificant ones in prison, but have had the privilege to be in the same jail with great saints, heroes of faith who equaled the Christians of the first centuries. They went gladly to die for Christ. The spiritual beauty of such saints and heroes of faith can never be described. The things that I say here are not exceptional. The supernatural things have become natural to Christians in the Underground Church who have returned to their first love." Tortured For Christ
"I have seen Christians in Communist prisons with fifty pounds of chains on their feet, tortured with red-hot iron pokers, in whose throats spoonfuls of salt had been forced, being kept afterward without water, starving, whipped, suffering from cold?and praying with fervor for the Communists. This is humanly inexplicable! It is the love of Christ, which was poured out in our hearts." Tortured For Christ
"In the first days after my conversion, I felt that I would not be able to live any longer. Walking on the street, I felt a physical pain for every man and woman who passed by. It was like a knife in my heart, so burning was the question of whether or not he or she was saved. If a member of the congregation sinned, I would weep for hours." Tortured For Christ
"In solitary confinement, we could not pray as before. We were unimaginably hungry; we had been drugged until we acted like idiots. We were as weak as skeletons. The Lord?s Prayer was much too long for us?we could not concentrate enough to say it. My only prayer repeated again and again was, 'Jesus, I love You.' And then, one glorious day I got the answer from Jesus: 'You love me? Now I will show you how I love you.' At once, I felt a flame in my heart, which burned like the coronal streamers of the sun. The disciples on the way to Emmaus said that their hearts burned when Jesus spoke with them. So it was with me. I knew the love of the One who gave His life on the cross for us all." Tortured For Christ
"Around me were ?Jobs??some much more afflicted than Job had been. But I knew the end of Job?s story, how he received twice as much as he had before. I had around me men like Lazarus the beggar, hungry and covered with boils. But I knew that angels would take these men to the bosom of Abraham. I saw them as they will be in the future. I saw in the shabby, dirty, weak martyr near me the splendidly crowned saint of tomorrow." Tortured For Christ
"It was in prison that we found the hope of salvation for the Communists. It was there that we developed a sense of responsibility toward them. It was in being tortured by them that we learned to love them. A great part of my family was murdered. It was in my own house that their murderer was converted. It was also the most suitable place. So in Communist prisons the idea of a Christian mission to the Communists was born." Tortured For Christ
"God sees things differently than we see them, just as we see differently than an ant. From the human point of view, to be tied to a cross and smeared with excrement is a horrible thing. Nonetheless, the Bible calls the sufferings of martyrs light afflictions. To be in prison for fourteen years is a long period to us. The Bible calls it 'but for a moment,' and tells us that these things are working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory (2Co 4:17). This gives us the right to suppose that the fierce crimes of the Communists, which are inexcusable to us, are lighter in the eyes of God than they are in our eyes. Their tyranny, which has lasted almost an entire century, may be before God, for whom a thousand years are like one day, only a moment of erring astray. They still have the possibility of being saved." Tortured For Christ
"Until the Communist era, I never understood why so many persons of the New Testament are called by nicknames: Simeon who was called Niger, John called Mark, and so on. We continue to use secret names in our work in captive nations. I never understood before why Jesus, wishing to have the last supper arranged, did not give an address but said, 'Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water' (Mar 14:13). Now I understand. We also give such secret signs of recognition in the work of the Underground Church." Tortured For Christ
"A man really believes not what he recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die for. The Christians of the Underground Church have proved that they are ready to die for their faith. Our international network of missions continues today with a secret work in captive nations that can mean for them imprisonment, torture, and death if caught in such a country. I believe in the things I write." Tortured For Christ
"There are no human words to express in an adequate manner the mysteries of God and the heights of spiritual life. Likewise, there are no human words that can describe the depths of devilish cruelty." Tortured For Christ
"A flower, if you bruise it under your feet, rewards you by giving you its perfume. Likewise Christians, tortured by the Communists, rewarded their torturers by love. We brought many of our jailors to Christ. And we are dominated by one desire: to give Communists who have made us suffer the best we have, the salvation that comes from our Lord Jesus Christ." Tortured For Christ
"Christians in the West have no love for those in captive nations. Proof of it is that they do nothing for their salvation... But it is not enough that they do not love those in captive nations and do nothing to win them for Christ. By their complacency, by their neglect, and sometimes by acting as actual accomplices, some Western church leaders strengthen the infidels in their infidelity... By not loving the Communists and those from other captive nations, and by doing nothing to win them for Christ (under the pretext that they are not allowed to do so, as if the first Christians asked permission from Nero to spread the gospel), Western church leaders do not love their own flocks either, if they do not allow them to participate in this spiritual battle around the world." Tortured For Christ
"The human heart by nature seeks after God. There is a spiritual vacuum in every man until it is filled by Christ." Tortured For Christ
"Those Christian leaders in the West who show friendship to the Communists and other tyrannical regimes justify it by the teaching of Jesus that we must love even our enemies. But never did Jesus teach that we must love only our enemies, forgetting our brethren. They show their "love" by wining and dining those whose hands are full of the blood of Christians, not by giving them the good news of Christ. But those oppressed by tyrants are forgotten. They are not loved." Tortured For Christ
"What encourages us to preach the gospel in captive nations is that there those who become Christians are full of love and zeal. I have never met a single lukewarm Russian Christian. Former young Communists and Muslims become exceptional disciples of Christ." Tortured For Christ
"God is the Truth. The Bible is the truth about the Truth. Theology is the truth about the truth about the Truth." Tortured For Christ
"In our darkest hours of torture, the Son of Man came to us, making the prison walls shine like diamonds and filling the cells with light. Somewhere, far away, were the torturers below us in the sphere of the body. But the spirit rejoiced in the Lord. We would not have given up this joy for that of kingly palaces." Tortured For Christ
"Writers around the world protested when two Communist writers, Siniavski and Daniel, were sentenced to prison by their own comrades. But not even churches protest when Christians are put in prison for their faith." Tortured For Christ
"The names of the martyrs are not on their prayer lists. While they were being tortured and sentenced, the Russian Baptist and Orthodox official leaders who had denounced and betrayed them were received with great honor at New Delhi, at Geneva, and at other conferences. There they assured everyone that in Russia there is full religious liberty. A leader of the World Council of Churches kissed the Bolshevik archbishop Nikodim when he gave this assurance. Then they banqueted together in the imposing name of the World Council of Churches, while the saints in prison ate cabbage with unwashed intestines, just as I had eaten in the name of Jesus Christ." Tortured For Christ
"Sin must be called by its name." Tortured For Christ
"In prison they have daily asked this almighty Father for bread and have received instead cabbage with unmentionable filth. Nevertheless, they believe God to be the loving Father. They are like Job who said that he would believe in God even if He would slay him. They are like Jesus who called God "Father," even when He was seemingly forsaken on the cross." Tortured For Christ
"We Christians are often half-heartedly on the side of the whole truth. They are wholeheartedly on the side of the lie." Tortured For Christ
"I tremble because of the sufferings of those persecuted in different lands. I tremble thinking about the eternal destiny of their torturers. I tremble for Western Christians who don't help their persecuted brethren." Tortured For Christ
"Since being in the West, I have visited many theological seminaries. There I heard lectures about the history of bells and the history of liturgical songs, about canonical laws long since disused or about a church discipline that no longer exists. I have heard that some students of theology learn that the biblical story of creation is not true, nor that of Adam, nor the flood, nor the miracles of Moses. Some are taught that the prophecies were written after their fulfillment; that the virgin birth is a myth; likewise the resurrection of Jesus, that His bones have remained somewhere in a grave; that the Epistles are not genuine; and that Revelation is the book of a madman. Otherwise, the Bible is a holy book! This leaves a holy book in which there are allegedly more lies than in Chinese Communist newspapers." Tortured For Christ
"The highest goal of man is to become Christ-like." Tortured For Christ
"We of the Underground Church have no cathedrals. But is any cathedral more beautiful than the sky of heaven to which we looked when we gathered secretly in forests? The chirping of birds took the place of the organ. The fragrance of flowers was our incense. And the shabby suit of a martyr recently freed from prison was much more impressive than priestly robes. We had the moon and stars as candles. The angels were our acolytes who lit them." Tortured For Christ
"I have found truly joyful Christians only in the Bible, in the Underground Church, and in prison." Tortured For Christ
"Pastors in the West usually assume that those whom they have in church are really convinced about the main truths of Christianity, which they are not. You rarely hear a sermon proving the truth of our faith. But behind the Iron Curtain, men who have never learned to do it gave their converts a very serious foundation." Tortured For Christ
"When an engineer has built a bridge, the fact that a cat can pass over the bridge is no proof that the bridge is good. A train must pass over it to prove its strength." Tortured For Christ
"In the homes of many Western Christians, hours are sometimes spent listening to worldly music. In our homes loud music can also be heard, but it is only to cover the talk about the gospel and the underground work so that neighbors may not overhear it and inform the secret police. How underground Christians rejoice on those rare occasions when they meet a serious Christian from the West!" Tortured For Christ
"Jesus said, "Teach all nations." He never said that we need governmental permission to evangelize. Faithfulness to God and the Great Commission compels us to reach beyond borders to people in restricted nations." Tortured For Christ
"Persecution has always produced a better Christian-a witnessing Christian, a soul-winning Christian. Communist persecution has backfired and produced serious, dedicated Christians such as are rarely seen in free lands. These people cannot understand how anyone can be a Christian and not want to win every soul they meet." Tortured For Christ
The Truth About Speaking In Tongues - Zac Poonen
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