I don't believe many churches or pastors really know what real revival is. They either think it's just extended evangelistic meetings to get more members or a time of sudden blessing that just encourages them in their Christian walk. But that's not what revival is. Revival isn't God's magic wand that he casually waves over your church and easy blessings. Rather, revival is you seeing your sinfulness and your need of turning from your wickedness as you are confronted with God's holiness. Revival is a sovereign work of God that man cannot produce on his own. The first time Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. It was to his own people at his church in Northampton, but without any special results. The second time he preached it in Enfield, Connecticut in July of 1741, the Holy Spirit attended the sermon with such power that people cried out in such distress that he had to cease from preaching because he could no longer be heard over the terrible shrieks and cries of, oh, I'm going to hell. Oh, what must I do for Christ? Edwards later wrote that no one can control where God sends revival for the wind blows where it will. My homiletical mentor, Dr. Stephen Olford wrote the following in his forward to my first book on revival, Reality's Revival. And on the subject of revival, Dr. Olford wrote, I was forced reminded of a expository sermon on revival I heard from the lips of the great G. Campbell Morgan during my theological studies in London, England many years ago. What the doctor had to say has helped me to understand how God and man come together in this holy business of bringing down revival from heaven. Let me paraphrase what I heard and remember. Revival is a sovereign work of God. Jesus declared, the wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone. who was born or revived of the Spirit. John 3, 8. Only God can command the revival wind, but we must set our sails to fetch that wind and catch it when it blows. Well, I reckon It was about 20 years ago when I last saw that wonderful wind of revival blow. I was on vacation in another state down south, and my only intent was to relax and play a few games of golf. And while I was in town, I looked up a pastor I had just met six months previously in a meeting in Memphis, a meeting of some preachers. He had expressed an interest in revival to me and said he wanted to see revival come to his church. Well, we chatted a while and exchanged numbers. I called him up when I got to town to ask him if he had a Wednesday evening service, and if so, I'd like to come attend." Well, he did, and I hung up the phone. About thirty minutes later, he called me back and asked me if I would take the evening service. Well, this was four o'clock in the afternoon, and his church began at six, and I told him I didn't have anything prepared. I was just down there on vacation. But he pleaded with me to preach to them that evening, so I agreed. I showed up at his church that night without any prepared sermon. On my drive over to his church, I felt led to preach out of the book of Amos from chapter 4 about the wayward Jews and how God sent his disobedient people a series of remedial judgments upon them in an attempt to get them to repent and turn back to Him. But because they failed to heed the warning, God increased the severity of the following judgments. That evening, I began my message from Amos 4, verse 6, where God declares, And I also have given you cleanness of teeth, in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places. Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord?" God had sent them a famine, but the rebellious Jews did not return to Him. Now notice how the next judgment God's scent was more severe than the previous one. In Amos 4, 7 we read, And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest, and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city. One peace was rained upon, and the peace whereupon it rained not withered, yet have you not returned unto me? Well, you can go a week without food, but man cannot live long without water. So God sent a drought to his disobedient people, but they failed to heed and change their ways. So God, in his mercy, sends them another remedial judgment, this time with more severity. for the neglected judgments of God become the increased judgments of God. Look at verse nine from Amos 4. I have smitten you with blasting and mildew when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased. The palmer worm devoured them, yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord. Well, God sent them a financial collapse. I told the people there that night that the incorrigible Jews wouldn't pay God any never mind. They were just more hardened in their sins. And that most of the remedial judgments that God sends to America go unnoticed by the church. And that most pastors today refuse to connect calamities in the land to the just displeasure of God over the land, so we can't point our fingers too much at the Jews in the days of Amos, because we as a people haven't turned back in repentance to the living God of the Bible either. Well, as I was speaking to them, I noticed that several on the front row had tears in their eyes. And I told them that because the people of God refused to listen to God, that God sent them an even worse judgment upon them. Look how severe the judgment is in verse 10. I have sinned among you. the pestilence after the manor of Egypt. Your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses, and I have made the stink of your camps to come up onto your nostrils. Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord?" Well, God sent them a pestilence, a plague, sent them war and death. He removed the young men out of the community. You know what, friends? You take the young man out of a community, and that community has little hope for the future. But the people refuse to repent and reform and return to God. Well, as I was closing my message, the pastor slowly walked up behind me. And we shut down the service and we waited there while the people left the building. And he walked me out the door. And as he was walking me out the door, he turned to me and he said, when I preach to them, they leave smiling and talking. But when you preach to them tonight, they left the sanctuary silent and their eyes were red. Well, the next day I played golf and tried to enjoy my vacation, and I forgot about it. But late Friday afternoon, the pastor called me and asked me if I would address some of the men, some of the leaders of his church that Saturday at 10 a.m. I said, well, I didn't have anything prepared. but if he really wanted me to, I'd be happy to talk to them about revival and pray with them. He thanked me, said he'd be sure to have his men at the church at 10 o'clock Saturday. When I arrived at the church that morning, there was a sense of expectation in the air. The men were solemn and serious. As I spoke to them about revival and the doctrine of repentance and seeing God move in former times, I said that repentance was the key to seeing revival. And I read to them a chapter from a book I'd written on repentance where I had listed about 75 things that people need to repent of, and I named these sins, and I named them one by one, and this seemed to break the man. We then went to a season of prayer. We got down on our faces before God, and some of the men confessed their sins out loud, and there was much brokenness in the hearts of these men. Well, it was obvious to me that God was doing some kind of work in this church. And all I can say, friends, is that we began that time at 10 a.m. that Saturday morning. And with a couple of short breaks, we were still going at it by five in the afternoon. Well, that evening at my condo, I received a call from the pastor asking me if I would take the Sunday morning service. Now bear in mind, I did not go down there to preach. I went down there because I needed a vacation. I was just going to go play a few games of golf, but God obviously was at work, and I explained to the pastor I couldn't preach the next morning because I was driving back home, and it was a long drive. I had a 15-hour drive ahead of me. and I had to be back in my office on Monday. He asked me to pray about it and he begged me to please preach and to let him know and call him back within the hour. Well, I told him I didn't even have any sermon prepared for Sunday, but I said I'd pray about it. So I hung up the phone and I called my friend, El Wedding Hill, and related the situation to him. And I asked him for his advice, what would he do in my shoes? And he said it was obvious God wanted me to preach Sunday morning. And that's what I should do. Well, that evening, I had a terrible burden for that church. I got out of bed at 2 a.m. and I stayed up most of the night on my face and on my knees, crying out to God over that church, crying out to God to send revival to that church. I prayed for the names of the men that I'd met and the pastor, and I just begged God to do something. And as I prayed, I wept over the members of that church until the carpet beneath me was soaked from my tears. Well, that Sunday morning, as I drove up to that church, I looked like a clown. I had on khaki golf pants and a plaid long-sleeve shirt old brown tie that was out of style, and I just found it laying curled up in a drawer, and I sure didn't even look like a preacher. I didn't even have a prepared sermon for them, but yet I was supposed to dress them. But all I had was an invitation to preach in a heavy burden for their souls. Well, I entered the pulpit and looked out upon them. There were several hundred people there, I reckon, and I opened my Bible to the book of Revelation, and I read from the chapter 20 on the last judgment. I began to describe that final judgment of all mankind where every mother's son will have to face God that day, and their lives will be reviewed, how the judge of all the earth sat on a great white throne and that the throne signified holiness because it was white and he was holy and he hates sin and that he was so powerful with him just the sight of him sitting there at that throne made the entire earth dissipate and dissolve into a dissolution as heaven and earth fled away from his face. I mentioned that the books that were opened were pertinent to each of our lives. One was a biography of everything we'd ever done. since we'd been alive, as it was reviewed in light of eternity. One was a book of the law, which we would be held up against. All our thoughts, our actions, our deeds, our motives would all be held up against the strictness and severity of that unbending law of God. And we all would fail that test because because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I said that man's hearts would fail him is that judge who had eyes of fire. would review their lives beneath the gaze of his intense scrutiny, alongside the severity and strictness of his unbending law, and that if you stood there in your own merits, you would fail that test. You had to stand there in the merits of another, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shed his blood at Calvary for sin. And about halfway through my message, I looked out upon the congregation, and it seemed as if a cannonball had just been shot down the center aisle of that church through the people's faces. all had looks of alarm. I told them I was going to stop my message now and that I normally don't give invitations, but if there were some who felt God was dealing with them to come forward, then the deacons would counsel them. I asked for the deacons to come forward to the head of the church, but no one moved. I thought they didn't hear me, so I raised my voice and repeatedly asked again. I asked for the deacons to get up and come forward to Council Annie who needed them, but no one moved. All was stillness. So I closed my Bible and I stepped down from the platform and I took my seat on the front row with my back to them. But I couldn't sit there long. God was there, and I had to worship Him. So I fell out of my chair, and I knelt on the floor with my back to the church, and my arms were raised over my head in glorious worship of that judge on that throne. Well, after several minutes, I heard footsteps running down the aisle, and a young man was jumping up and down, hollering, I just got saved! I just got saved! I really just got saved! Well, I don't know if he did. I'll find out at the judgment. But he said he did. Then the music minister ran up to me, exclaiming in an excited voice, I saw Jesus! on his throne. I'm telling you, I saw him on his throne." Well, I don't know if he really did, but he said he did. Then a deacon came up to me and apologized for not responding to my call for the deacons to come forward for counseling. He looked at me in wonder and replied, we couldn't move. an unseen force had us frozen in our chairs. We couldn't get up. Well, I don't know if that was so or not, but he said it was so. All I know is I went out of town for a few days on vacation and ended up preaching three times in a church where the wind of heaven blew and God came down and lives were changed to the glory of God.