And I'm thinking, maybe that's what I need to do. I agree. And so, in the year 2000, I should say this. My son was in Nevada. My son, Aurel, he wanted nothing to do with Christianity at this point. All kinds of problems. And he just wanted nothing to do. We were struggling. We had troubles. And in the year 2000, we went back on a short furlough, just for a month. And you guys know as missionaries, you get to kind of sense the atmosphere of a church very quickly as you go into it. And here's what happened. We went from church to church. And you got to the place where you could walk in the door and know which churches had changed their music. And it wasn't better. They had lost something. There was something of the sense of the presence of God gone. And so that month convinced me that that wasn't the way to go. I didn't want that. Whatever we needed, that wasn't what we needed. But we still didn't know what we needed. telephoned me, he was coming over to camp for us, and he had telephoned me some months before that and said, listen, it was in his mind to preach a series on the Holy Spirit. Well, I thought, honestly, I thought that can't hurt us, I mean, yeah, great, wonderful. So we came back from camp in June, I think in July. We had our own church camp, and Brother John came to our camp. And Brother John had been to the island of Lourdes just immediately before he came to our camp. And he began to preach. He was preaching on the Holy Spirit. The first evening, what we did was, what we normally, we had a sing-spiration. We would sit around, we would sing, and after the services of the day, and that went fine, and nothing amazing happened. Then John suggested something that was entirely weird. He said, why don't we do this? Why don't we all just gather around in a circle, and instead of just having somebody lead and singing, Let's let the Holy Spirit lead. Well, that was definitely novel for us, right? And he said, let's do this, because he had met with one of the men from the revival in Lewiston. They had talked about this. And he said, if people want to pray, they can pray. If people want to sing, they can just start singing. And if people want to give a testimony, they can do that, just as the Lord leads. Well, very scary. I remember saying to the piano player what we're going to do, and she said flat out, We spent two hours mostly in prayer that night. And it was as though the preaching of the day and the Holy Spirit just connected in people's souls. It was a God thing. It was not something we had prayed for. It was not something we had expected. God just came down. We continued on that. We would just stop happening. We would go through the preaching services during the day and in the evening. And the prayer meeting in the evening, I would just say, we're gonna have a prayer meeting, be here if you wanna be here. It began to be the focus of what was going on, and people were just drawn into it. And the people would get up from the prayer meeting, and they would go and make things right with each other. And it was just the most amazing time. We knew God was here. In a way, I had never sensed God before he was here in the meeting. Well, of course, that's camp. Camp's exciting, we thought. As soon as we go back from camp, that'll all change. But you know, it didn't change. When we came back from camp, God was still moving mightily. Every service was the same. In fact, John went off to England and I phoned him. I said, you gotta come back. And he came back to us to be with us for another week. And just amazing things happened. My son, Aurel, had been in rebellion. He just did not want anything to do with Christianity. During that week, God met with him and broke his heart. And he got right with God. And he is the man he is today because of what happened that week. It changed him completely. I'll tell you that. If you ask about it, he'll tell you. God changed him completely. We had a youth group at the time that was, your average youth group going nowhere. God got a grip of those kids. Six of them went to Bible college. Six of them, and listen, they weren't going to Bible college before that happened. But after that week, six of them went to Bible college. You know, Leighton A. McKellar, the church here supports him. Leighton runs a ministry for addiction. Well, Leighton had been saved when he was 12 years old in our church. And he came to church for a while, and he helped around the church and so on, but the world got a hold of him, and Leighton had gone into the world, and he became, to cut a long story short, he became a heretic. And so he went off the radar completely. We'd go and look for him, and we couldn't find him. So we hadn't seen Leighton for years. On back from camp, three days, Leighton stumbles in the door of the church, and I mean literally stumble in, he was high as a kite. And he had a bag of drugs with him that he left behind, and I brought it down to him later on. He stumbles in the door of the church, and he sits down, and he tells me that he wants to help people. And I'm looking at this kid, Isaac Highton, and I'm saying, you need help. But God drew him back in. The Holy Spirit drew him back. He came to live with us for three months, and he went off to a program here in Scotland. God changed Layton's life, but you know what? The beginning of it, the genesis of that, was revival. God was actually at work. So the ministry that Layton has got to that, you know what? The beginning of it was revival. We saw our students change. We saw the church double in size, and then we saw the church triple in size. And if you ask me what the plan was, I don't know. to do great things, even in our age. Unless you think, I come to you with all the answers, you know, I'm excited about the work we've got going, I'm excited about what God has done, but you know, we need more land again today. That's 2000, that's 16 years ago. We need God to come in the same way again. It's not the same as it was during that time. We need the blessing of God. And even at what we saw God do, you know, it's just a drop in the ocean. Here's what I really believe. I believe God gave us just a little tiny insight into what he can do. Because what we need God to do is much greater than that. We need God to do a great work. So we're gonna look at Elijah here. I'm gonna try and look at it quickly. We're gonna see Israel in the same situation, and we're gonna see God meeting the need for Israel. And here's the thing I see. Revival always comes when things are at a low end. Now, I know people that think, you know what, you should work up to revival. In other words, you know, you get the church going right, and everybody's praying right, and everything's going right, and then when you're holy enough, God will come and revive. That's not historically correct. And to be honest with you, we can't do that. That's not what's gonna happen. Revival is something that comes when we're desperately in need and we know it. And that's what we see in this Old Testament story of revival. You see, the nation under Ahab and Jezebel is in a wicked, wicked state. It's bad. In fact, in chapter 16 it says, and Ahab made a grove, and Ahab did more, chapter 16, verse 33, let me just read it for you. And he did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him. Do you know what? God was upset with Israel at this time, justifiably, Reasonably, God was upset. You know, you could say He was angry with Israel. Now, you know what? If I was angry with Israel, you know, I wouldn't be thinking of bringing a revival to them or anything like that. And yet, that's just what's going to happen. Look at our culture. Our culture is wicked, isn't it? I mean, it's more wicked today than it was when I was a kid. It's always been wicked, but it's much more wicked today than it was then. Somebody mentioned the referendum in Ireland, where Ireland as a nation embraced homosexuality. Who'd have ever thought? My mother, my 82 year old mother, was absolutely astounded at what happened. She couldn't believe. that the Irish people had embraced this in the way they did. So we live in a wicked day, and it would be easy for us to come down on the side of, well, God's angry with people because of their sin, and God hates sin, but you know what? God also loves people. Jesus shed his blood for the people that voted yes to homosexuality. He wants to save them. He wants to save them. The nation of Israel is in a wicked state. And God's going to take and use a man, and He's going to use that man to turn it around completely. Do you know that God can turn Scotland around yet? God can turn Ireland around yet. God can still do it. His power is not less today than it was then. God can still do it. Father, would You bless us, Lord. If we look to Your Word, then would You help us, Lord, to lay hold upon it. And Lord, would You help us to be encouraged, Lord, to expect great things. All right, 1 Kings chapter 17, and Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, as the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. Now, chapter 17, verse one's a bit of an enigma. It's just kind of dropped into the middle of scripture without any of them kind of, without anything being said to us about what happens here, it's just dumped in. In fact, other scripture actually helps us to discern it. In James, it tells us that the effectual prayer of a righteous man avails much, and that Elias, that's Elijah, was a man subject to life passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained out on the earth in the space of three years and six months. So what's going on here is, Elijah has been praying for no rain. Now why is he praying for no rain? Well, what happens is, in Deuteronomy chapter 11, God had promised. that as a nation of Israel turned to idols, he would stop the rain. And Elijah could look at it and say, well, it's still raining. God, what are you doing? You said you would stop the rain. They're into idolatry, they're worshiping idols, they've forgotten you, they've gone their own way and doing their own thing, and he's saying, now Lord, will you stop the rain? Oh, will you stop, and you know what? God says to him, okay, Elijah, you've got it. Go tell Ahab there's gonna be no more rain. Go tell Ahab I am going to stop the rain, until this thing turns around. And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. So God says, once Elijah had announced to Ahab that there was going to be no more rain, Ahab may not have known it yet, but God knew he was going to be in trouble. And when the rain didn't come, and things began to get bad in the land, Elijah was gonna become public enemy number one. Let's get this guy who stopped the rain, let's do whatever we have to do and make him stop the rain again. And so God said, listen, I want you to go to the bookshelf, I want you to hide out, and I've prepared ravens to feed thee there. And here's what God said to Elijah, things are gonna get tough, you're gonna be the worst person in the world, but I'm going to take care of you in the midst of it. You know, for God to bring revival, sometimes it needs to get tough. And you say, hey, Pastor, it can't get tougher than it is. No, sometimes God needs to make it tough. You know, we live in a society that is divorced from God in the sense that they don't think God is in charge of anything. They have full fridges. And there's full supermarkets. And, you know, when we have a financial crisis, what you do in our day and age is you just print money. America printed money, and Europe printed money, and I think Britain has printed money as well. You just get the printing presses rolling and you print money. Now, isn't it just a shame that you don't have one in your house that can get you out of trouble when you put that? That's what governments do. What they do is they ease the effect of the financial turndown so that we'll keep on buying and the economy keeps rolling. And you know, we live in a world that feels isolated from God. You have something that looks like it's going to be an epidemic. Well, you know what? The World Health Organization will go to work on it and stem it before it actually gets there. And we kind of feel invulnerable. We feel like there's nothing that can actually touch us. We really don't know our God. And certainly the world doesn't know our God. Our God, in mercy, is both able and willing to bring the world to its knees. And we ought to be expecting it. We ought to be expecting that God's going to do something And not because he hates mankind. And not so that we can sit back and say, see, we told you this is coming. No, we ought to be expecting that God will stop the rain because the world is turning away from him and he wants to turn the world back to him. We ought to be expecting that God actually does something that's going to change the world. And we ought to also be expecting that he will take care of us. Matthew 6.33 says, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, And all these things shall be added on to you. God can take care of you. God will take care of you. I think we may see very terrifying days. But it'll be okay. If that's what it takes for God to turn the world to Himself, then you know, that's just gonna be perfectly fine. We need to understand that. Elijah prayed, really, the daftest prayer, Lord, stop the rain. Yet for an agricultural country, that meant that the economy was going to grind to a halt. All the livestock were going to die. People were going to die. He didn't care. He prayed it anyway. By the way, we do need to be careful that we're not so plugged into the world system that we're afraid. You know, that we want God to bring us kind of a bloodless revival. That we want God to turn the world around without costing us anything, you know? It cost Elijah. He had to leave and go to the Book of Cherubim. But you know, he was fine. And it does say there. There was a place God had appointed for him. You know, I think God's appointed a place for you and I, too. I don't think it's just happenstance or just chance. I think, you know what, God's appointed a place for me to be in the place God has told us to be, so he can take care of us. So he goes to the brook chair. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook. And it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. Let me say this, when God provides for you, you never expect it to dry up, do you? If I was Elijah, I'd be saying, what gives here? I mean, you told me to come here, you told me there'd be water here, I'd be looked after here, and now all of a sudden, the brook is dried up. But if God had another plan for him, and we've got to understand, too, that in God's leading and in God's working in our lives, we can expect that there are going to be turns and twists in the world, that's okay. God doesn't look at the turns and twists of the author. I didn't know the book was going to dry up. What am I going to do now? God knew the book was going to dry up, and he knew when it was going to dry up, and he had a widow woman prepared to take care of Elijah, and so that's where he sent him. And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman to sustain thee there. And so he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, Behold, the widow woman was there gathering sticks, and he called to her and said, fetch me, I pray thee, a little water and a vessel, that I may drink. And as he was going to fetch it, he called to her and said, bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. And she said, as the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cape but a handful of meal, and a barrel, and a little oil, and a cruz, and behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and for my son, that we may eat it and dine. And Elijah said to her, fear not, go and do as Diana said, Me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the crucible of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah. And she and her house did eat many days, and the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the crucible of oil fail according to the word of the Lord of which he spake by Elijah. So God took care of Elijah. in spite of all that. God can take care of us no matter what he brings to our society. God loves Scotland. God loves the people of Scotland. It'd be easy for us to think, well, God loved the people of Scotland back in Revival time. And he did, but he loves the people of Scotland today. And he has us here because he wants to do a work. And you know what? If in order for God to do a work, he has to unhinge the economy, we'll be fine. God's bigger than the economy. Our God is bigger than anything we're going to see happen. Our God is bigger than epigraphics. Our God is bigger than all of it. Whatever our God has to do, He will do it, and we ought to embrace it, not be afraid of it. We ought to embrace what God is going to do. That's that chapter there. Elijah raises the dead boy. We'll not read it for time sake, but let's skip over to chapter 18. And it came to pass after many days that the word of the Lord, now by the way, many days is a hard part, isn't it? is three and a half years for Elijah. Now think about this. The whole nation is on hold. Nothing's happening for three and a half years. Listen, what's happening is the first time the rain doesn't come, all the crops fail. Okay, well, we still have enough seed. We'll plant the next season. The second time the rains don't come, all those crops fail. Rapidly they run out of seed and they run out of food. Then we know by the end of the story they will not have even grasped And even the king can't find food for his horses. So what we're seeing is things are going hard, and it's three and a half years. And what's Elijah doing in the three and a half years? Not much. We don't like that, do we? We can take three and a half hours, maybe. Some of us might be able to take three and a half days, or three and a half weeks, but three and a half years? Nothing happening for three and a half years. And by the way, it doesn't tell Elijah, that God, tell us that God sent Elijah updates, saying, hey, you know what, I'm doing this one, don't worry about it, we're getting to you, Elijah. He doesn't get any updates. He just gets left, he only hears when he needs to hear. We're not good at that. We're not good at waiting. You know, God sends us, tells us he's going to do something, and we say, great, we want it now. and we're not good at the waiting thing, and you know what, here's the thing, it seems like the waiting thing is always part of what God is doing, always, it's the rule. You know, you look at Abraham, why do you have to wait 25 years for a baby? You know, I mean, what's the problem? You know, you told him, the whole basis of your call to him was this baby, and then you take 25 years, when it's long past the time for his wife to have a child, why do you have to wait 25 years? You know, Joseph was gonna be the head of the family, and they were all gonna bow down to him. Well, why did he have to go to prison? God didn't tell him that, did he? God didn't tell him. You see, what God does is, God tells us what he's going to do, and then he says, now I want you to trust me. Here's what God does. God wants to do something for Scotland. He wants to do something for the world, but he wants to do something in you as well. And, you know, sometimes when you look at what God is doing, it seems like, What he wants to do in a person is actually more important than what he was doing in the big picture. I don't think it's true, but I think it looks like that sometimes. And God's able to work, God's able to set his focus like that, like we can't, and do a work in you in the meantime. And you know how Elijah's having a work done in him. And Elijah's question is, Elijah, will you wait? Will you just wait? Don't go. You go there. You go to the brook chair, Elijah. And then you go to the wooden one. You just wait. You just wait for me. You know, that's a hard one for us, isn't it? We don't want to wait. We want to be where the action is. We want to be where something's happening. And we get antsy and we move from where God has us, because we're waiting for God to do something. Now there's two sides to this, right? You don't want to move from where God has put you, but you don't want to be in a place where you're not expecting anything. Well, bless God, this is Ziklag, I'm gonna stay in Ziklag for the rest of my life, and you know what, this is all there is. No, there's more. And you see, that's the knife edge that we have to live on that we don't like. I can take moving, I can take doing something, but I can't take living expectantly, that's hard. Living expectantly is just, oh man, that worries ya. Living, expecting God to do something. That's what God wants. God wants us to live expectantly. Live expecting great things. Live expecting God to do things that you can't do. Because God knew from the Word of God that we couldn't do it. Elijah had no hope of doing this by himself. He wanted to change his country, but you know what? He couldn't do it. He had to cry out to God, and he had to wait on God to do it. We're in the same place today. We need God, and we can't do it. So it came to pass after many days that the word of the Lord came unto Elijah on the third year, saying, go show thyself unto Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth. And Elijah went to show himself unto Ahab, and there was a sore famine in Samaria. And Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house. Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly. Now, we could talk for a long time about the difference between Obadiah and Elijah, but let's just think about it for a few moments here, right? Elijah is outside the camp. He is public enemy number one. Ahab wants him. Ahab wants to strangle him and make him bring back the rain. Ahab has sent him to all the countries around and he has made them make promises that they haven't seen Elijah. He wants Elijah. Obadiah is a good man who fears the Lord greatly. In fact, he's going to pronounce his goodness. He's gonna say, listen, when Jezebel cut off the prophets, and I had 100 prophets in a cave, I took care of a lot of them. I'm one of the good guys. But Obadiah is part of Ahab's court. He's the chief advisor. He's the guy Ahab says, hey, listen, let's go find food for the horses, because they're all going to die. He's in. Now, here's what we think. We think if you want to influence society, you've got to get into the inner workings of society. You've got to get plugged into the political deal, and then you'll be able to actually influence your society. And that's wrong thinking on our part. Do you know that politicians are not the ones that actually influence society? Politicians are not the light of the world. You and I are, you say seriously. Yeah, you and I are, we're the light of the world. We believers, we're the light of the world. We need to understand that, you know, getting into the inner workings of society, normally, what it does is, it dulls us. It dulls our power. It stops us from achieving what God would have us to achieve. Obadiah does it, and when we look at Obadiah, when we look at the difference between Obadiah and Elijah, What we have in Elijah, we have a man who knows God. Just think about it. Who would you want to be? Overdive in the new ab, and have that measure of comfort, and what's a good man? Right? Or Elijah. See, the reward is to know your God. Elijah heard the word from God. Isn't that neat? Weren't you just loved then? God said, Elijah, you've got it. No more rain. I'll tell you when to go talk to him again if there's no more rain. Elijah was fed by ravens in the book of Genesis. Elijah was fed by the widow of Zarephath. Elijah's going to see Mount Carmel and pray down fire on Mount Carmel. Elijah's going to have his prayer for rain answered. Elijah, when he gets depressed and goes on the run, is going to have an angel come and feed him and take care of him. Elijah's going to see visions of God. You know, it's worth any price. for you to have those things in your life. But you know what it means, what it takes? God wants you to Himself. God wants you to Himself. He wants you off on your own with Him. He wants you looking to Him and to Him alone. He does not want you involved in the culture of our day in a way that you can influence it like you think. He wants you focused on Him. You see, somebody said that Archimedes said that he could move the whole world if he could just get a point of pressure to put the lever on outside of him. And you know, that's what we need to be. None can move the world through us. But he can only move the world through us if we're outside the law. If we keep our freedom to speak his word. To speak truth. We live in a culture that, you know, How dare you say anything about homosexuality in our day? Well, you've got to. You have to. Because what God says, don't say it because you say it. Don't say it because you're a church, that's what God says. We live in an immoral world where people live together. You know what happens in churches? Pastors get afraid to say it because half the flock will leave. It's still wrong. You've got to say it. You say, but nobody will come. The age is different. You know what? You need to be somebody outside the system, somebody who's willing to call it as God says it is for God to actually do it. That's what Elijah wants. And Elijah's impact is huge by comparison to Obadiah's. Obadiah can't hold a candle to what Elijah is able to do. You see, Elijah obeys God unquestioningly. He does what God wants him to do without asking questions. Now, we're gonna skip part of it here. Verse 16 of chapter 18. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him, art thou of he the trouble of Israel? Isn't it amazing that the world thinks we're the ones that cause the trouble? Isn't that amazing? And don't we feel so chafed by that? That's so unfair. We're the good guys. And we know we're the good guys, but they think we're the ones that cause all the trouble. And it's going to be worse. They're going to think we're the ones that are causing the trouble. Ahab comes to Elijah and says, are you the guy that caused all the trouble? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy fathers has, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Balaam. He says, I'm not the trouble, you are. You're the trouble. Now therefore send and gather to me all Israel, and to Mount Carmel the prophets of Baal 450, the prophets of the grove 400, which eat at Jezebel's table. So I have sent in all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto Mount Carmel. And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. Now why didn't they answer him? Do you know why? They didn't know. At that point, the people didn't know. They didn't have an answer. You know, demons are on our world today. People don't know. They really do not know. You can talk to people about God, and they will look at you like, where did you come from? Because they don't know. They are totally ignorant of the power of the omnipotent God, and they are totally way beyond our judgment. Then the judgment's coming. They laugh at it and scoff because, you know, they don't believe it. We live in a society that really has don't-God. Our post-Christian society has made it look like, listen, there is no God to them. They have come to a place where He has been dethroned. They killed Him off in their minds. Now, you know what? You and I can tell them the Word of God has power, and you know what we're gonna find that God actually, the gospel is the power of God in salvation, and people actually come to believe it as we speak. That's swell. Do you know what the world needs to see? The world needs to see God. The world needs to see God to turn it around. It needs to see the power of God. Now, I can't do that. You know, I wish I could go up on a mountain in Dublin and do something so that everybody in Dublin would say, hey, there is a God. But I can't do that. We need God to show them how real and how powerful He is. You know, in a sense, the people are sheep, they always are. And the people follow the leaders. And the leaders in thinking, and the leaders in culture, and the leaders in politics, have all basically said, there is no God. And so the sheep have said, okay, there is no God. We've got a generation that has been raised on evolution. A second generation that's been raised on evolution. And you know, so they're saying, there is no God. And they need to see God again. Now, you know what? In a sense, okay, everybody's called, well, according to Romans, everybody's responsible according to Romans, but in a sense, how would they know any better? How would they know? It's very frustrating when we talk to people and they just reject the word. Well, how would they know? We need God to demonstrate His power once again. We need God to make His name known amongst the people. So, Elijah says, listen, the Orphan God doesn't follow Him, and the Baalist God doesn't follow Him, and they say, basically, well, we don't know who is God. We don't know which way to go. I mean, we're pretty upset that there's no water and everything's dying, but you know what? Who's going to fix it, Baal or God? We don't know. Verse 22, then said Elijah unto the people, I even I only remain a prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets are 450 men. Now he's not right there, God shows him later on. There are others too. Let them therefore give us two bullocks, and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under. And I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under. And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord. And the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, it is well spoken. Do you know what? These people were willing to believe if somebody could show them. Do you think that might be true in our culture today? It doesn't look like they're totally shut off to anything of God. But you know what? They don't know their sheep. They follow the leader. The leaders have said, there is no God. They say, there is no God. And they have followed the leaders. But you know what? Somewhere inside of them, they know that's not quite true. Somewhere inside of them, they know You know, they look up all of a sudden in a coffin, and they say, they're not there, where are they? They know. And you talk to people who've been through a crisis sometimes, and they're very open. They may not get saved, but they're very open. And you know, people need to see the reality of God. People need to see the power of God in our day and age. Now, I think God wants to show us God. I think God's not relinquished a 21st century man and said, okay, listen, you've just grossed me out with all your self-impedible junk. God isn't doing that. God wants to show Himself in our day and age, too. God wants to demonstrate His power. And when the people hear about this contest, they say, okay, all right, if you do it, we'll believe you. Verse 25, Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, chose you one boat for yourselves, and dress it first, He are many, and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under. And they took a book which was given them, and they dressed it. And they called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered, and they leaped upon the altar which was made. And they came to pass at noon, and Elijah mocked them, and said, cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he sleepeth, and must be awake. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. And there was no answer. And you know why there was no answer? Because God said there's going to be no answer. Do you know that the world promises to satisfy people? And it never does. It never does. What happens is, you know, we've got people who have no God and have everything, and they're more miserable than they've ever been. They're committing suicide in numbers greater than they've ever done. Life is not working. Life is pointless. We have a generation that have grown up in a technological age, who have everything they could possibly want, and they have nothing. They are hopeless and helpless. You know what they are? They're ripe for revival. They are ripe for God to do something. They are ripe for God to actually demonstrate His power. And what's happening is, the world has been proven And they keep thinking it will, the latest thing, the newest thing. But they're not, they're miserable. Now, they're not ready to turn to God, because they're miserable, because they don't know they're miserable. They don't recognize how miserable they are. But they are miserable. Because the God of this world cannot satisfy them. God has made the whole thing, and he has made it. So, although we look at our culture, although we look at people and we say, oh, it's impossible. That's what the enemy would have you believe. But the truth and the reality is, they are probably closer to turning to God than we can even imagine. Because it's empty. It's all empty. And came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied unto the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. And Elijah said unto all the people, come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. You know what? We need to make sure the altar of the Lord is repaired. We need to be in the place where the church is, make sure the church is in the right place. No, we're not going to be so holy that we can command revival. That's the mercy of God. But we need to be in the right place. We need not to be moved by the world. And where the altar of the Lord has been broken down, we need to repair it. We need to put it back in place. Even though it seems like, you know what, it doesn't matter. It does, it matters to God. Repair the altar. Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob. unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be thy name. And with the stones he built an altar unto the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar, as great as it contained two measures of seed. And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on wood, and said, fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt offering. and on the wood, and he said, do it the second time, and they did it the second time, and he said, do it the third time, and they did it the third time. And the water ran round about the altar, and he filled the trench also with water. Why'd he do that? He did it to make it impossible. It was absolutely, I mean, it was impossible to start out with, how do you pray fire down to get the wood brushed out? Let's make it super extra, absolutely impossible. And that's drenched the whole thing with water. Have you ever tried to light a fire with wet wood? I mean, that's an impossibility. This is totally impossible. Now, do you know that we serve the God of the impossible? I mean, you could say this. It doesn't get fun for God until it's impossible. It doesn't get to the place where God gets great glory from until the situation looks bleak and impossible. It doesn't get to the place where God really gets glory from until you can't and it looks like nobody ever could. Isn't that where we are today? Isn't that where we are? We're in the place where we can't, nobody ever creates. Now let's just hang on faithfully to the end and hope the end comes soon. Isn't that all what it looks like today? But it's not like that. Our God still reigns. He's still on the throne. And there's nothing impossible to Him. The fact that it's impossible doesn't faze Him for a moment. He loves it. What he does want is, he wants some Elijah's that will believe him for great things. That will expect him to do great things. And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel. Do you know the purpose of revival is not primarily to save souls. People come to Him. But the purpose of it is glory. The purpose of it is not so that we'll have great stories to tell. The purpose of it is not so that I'll look great in anybody else's eyes. The purpose of revival is so that God gets the glory that He is Jehovah. God can show His power in this age, and He will. But He wants to show it so that He gets the glory. Let it be known to say that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces, and they said, the Lord, he is the God, the Lord, he is God. You know whom God demonstrates his power mightily. It's impossible. Well, I shouldn't say impossible, because people can. But you know what? It gets ridiculous not to see Him and not to accept Him. Somebody has to be very hard-hearted indeed to turn away from God when He shows His power, when He makes His name known. And He's not done yet. We live in the 21st century. We live in a time when it looks impossible. I think we probably had the second or the third set of barrels of water thrown on the altar. It looks bad, doesn't it? And it looks impossible, but it's not impossible. Our God still reigns, and He can still do it. Let me give you some promises for us from the Word of God. You see, our God wants to do the supernatural in our day. He wants to do the supernatural. John 14, 12 says, What would greater works look like? Greater works than Jesus. The only area that we could see greater works than Jesus would be The plan was that we would see greater works. And you know what? The early church did. You go to the book of Acts, Jesus had about 500 followers by the time he went back to heaven. You go to the book of Acts, in Acts chapter 1, we've got 3,000. And then we've got multiplied numbers of that. You know what? And that was not just the plan for the book of Acts. That was not just a rocket boost to get it going, that was the plan for the age. Because the only way to reach the world is greater works. If you look at the population of the world, it was less than a billion in the Book of Acts. It's nearly eight billion today. Do you know greater works are going to be greater than anything in the Book of Acts, even? Greater works have to be people getting saved. Now, we gotta believe that God is able in our day and age. We gotta expect that God is going to do great things. Ireland to be reached. We need 57,000 missionaries. Not happening. It's just not happening. Scotland needs more. Now, if we're going to see the work that God wants to accomplish, accomplished in our day and age, it's going to have to be something supernatural, way beyond anything we've seen. Let me give you some other promises. John 15 verse 7, If ye abide in me, and my word abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be gone unto you. I mean, that's directly related to this. John 15 verse 7. Isaiah 44 verse 3, I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and clothes upon the dry ground. I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring, and they shall spring up as among the grass, as well as by the water courses. One shall say, I am the Lord, and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel. God says, I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground." Spiritually, is it not dry ground out there? Spiritually, is it not so dry that nothing could grow on it? You put the water in with the heat and the soil and the seed, and even though it looks impossible, it will flourish. That's what God's talking about. He wants it to flourish. Psalm 81 verse 10, I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. Do you know that the church has always been dependent upon revival? The church was never intended to be an organization that grew by machinery and by methods that we... It's never been that way. We've got so much machinery that we kind of invented a new idea about the church that, you know, if we follow this plan, if we follow this church growth plan, or that church growth plan, we'll get it done. And you know what? You've got a half a dozen growth plans that you've tried and haven't worked. That was never the intention. You know, there's one period in the history of Wales, but you could chart revival every seven years somewhere in that time in Wales. 200 years. Every seven years, somewhere, there's revival. What happened is, the people of God became like we are today. They've come to the end of themselves, and they'll begin to cry out to God. God, you've got to do something. God, you've got to move. You've got to do something. It's impossible. We can't do this work. The young people are turning away in their droves. You know, that's always one of the things that happens before revival comes, that the young people turn away. And the young people are turning away, Lord, Lord, really? And God would come in the Revival. And then, we got to the place where we were dependent on ourselves, and it stopped. And you know, if nothing else, we know, we know, we're experts in knowing what we can't do, aren't we? We had one guy that came to a meeting we had after the Revival, and he prayed this, and it was really neat, he said, Lord, We have no idea what we're libelized, but we surely know what it's not. You know, we know there is a need. There is a desperate need. And you know what? God wants to do something to meet the need. And if we don't cry out to him, God will do something. And if we don't expect him to do something, God will do something. All of a sudden, there may be a journey involved, and God may actually take you and put you through the ringer. God may put our world through the wringer, that's fine. But God wants to do something. And God can do it. We need reliable. Let me give you an illustration. We have, in 1832, James Hudson Taylor was born to a Christian family in Yorkshire, England. By the time of his death in 1905, he had been used by God to found the China Indian Mission. which are 205 stations, 849 missionaries, and 125,000 Chinese Christians. It would be hard to find a human being that's had an impact on this world like what's in here now. Because we're seeing things in China today that directly relate back to his ministry in China. It would be hard to find a human being that did. Now, about the same time, 200 miles away in Wicklow in Ireland, a man called Thomas Coleman was born to a Catholic family. By the time of his death in 1899, he was known as a poacher. He had amassed an estate of three acres of land, which in bitterness he bequeathed to his daughter rather than his son. He was a literary scientist with an execute, like my great, great grandfather. 200 miles apart. Now what was the difference between the two? The difference was Bible and saved on his wedding day. And a friar had served in that family that affected his grandson, and that we could legitimately say changed the world. You know what? God can still do that kind of thing. God's time is not shrunk, and God's not up in heaven looking down and saying, oh, it's so bad, it's so desperate down there. God still has the power to do it. Do we have the faith to believe and to ask Him to do it? You know, God would build our faith. I love the passage in Mark where Jesus says to the man, all things are possible to him that believeth. And the guy's looking at his son, who's demon-possessed, and he says, oh Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. God would be able to say, God wants to touch our world again. And he's not going to touch it through politics, and he's not going to touch it through the World Health Organization, and he's not going to touch it through the UN or the EU. He's going to touch it through people like us. Do we have the faith to cry out to God and say, Lord, I believe. Help them on their life. I want to see you do great things again. Spirit of the Living God, you know our hearts. Oh, you know what you've put in each one of our hearts, Lord, to want from you. Oh, you know how weak we are, and how easily, easily the enemy steals away what you've got. Now, Blessed Spirit of the Living God, would you work in hearts and minds in this room? Would you give us a passion for revival, to see