Welcome friends to the line of fire where we are here to equip and empower you so you can stand strong on the front lines. And friends, the reality is, like it or not, we are all in the line of fire today, but I'm here to say be strong, be encouraged.
God is with you and it is the will of God to come and touch and strengthen his people. The key to the health of America, the key to the health of the nations is the health of the truth. It's our church and it's our goal to help make the church healthy in Jesus' name. Thanks so much for joining us all this month. We're teaching on the theme of revival using my book, Revival or We Die.
I'll tell you a little later in the broadcast how you can get a copy of this for yourself. Revival or We Die, a great awakening is our only hope. And our working definition of revival, very simply, it is a season of unusual divine visitation. It is God coming in an exceptional, unusual way that we can mark it. And when it happens, radical change comes. I want to talk to you today and give you a picture of what revival looks like, what revival feels like, why it's so essential that we see a great moving of God in the church today, which would then move over into the society and impact the society. Outpouring in the church, awakening in the society, that is the key to the future of America. If you care about your kids, your grandkids, the next generations, it really is revival or we die. The psalmist prayed in Psalm 85, 6, will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you?
Let me take you back a few years. A British author, Arthur Wallace, who was just a teenager, he visited Wales and he heard an eyewitness account of the Welsh revival of 1904 and 1905. I mean, this was an extraordinary outpouring of the spirit. Probably over 90% of the people in Wales would have Christian church identification, had some gospel knowledge, but some said they were taught to death. And they were spiritually dead and backslidden, and many of them just formal in their religious practices. And when the Welsh revival broke out, God using a coal miner, 26 year old coal miner, Evan Roberts, and others, the spirituals moving here and here and here, all over Wales. Nine months later, it was estimated that there were 100,000 new converts that came into the kingdom in that short period of time in the small country of Wales. And stories are told, but they've been investigated.
They've been vetted. True stories where judges would wear white gloves because they didn't have any cases coming before them to try. Where police would gather where the crowds were, which is in the churches, and form gospel quartets to sing in the churches.
Where you'd hear many accounts of men who were unsaved and the wife was a believer praying for them, and they'd go in the bar to have a drink, and they could not get the drink to their lips because conviction came on them and they would run out and get saved. One of the students at our ministry school years ago was from Wales and began to research the Welsh revival more, and he said, you know, rugby was the big sport then. He said, any community you went to, they had a rugby league.
He said, in some places rugby leagues were canceled because there was no interest in the sport. There was so much interest in God and meeting with God. Can you imagine what something like that would look like and feel like here in America?
Could you imagine what the implications would be? So here's what Wallace describes going as a teenager to Wales. He puts us in the third person, but he's speaking about himself. He said it was springtime in the year 1938.
A boy in middle teens stood in the little school room adjoining Moriah Chapel in the small Welsh mining town of Longar. A strange feeling of awe and wonder filled his heart, for this was the very room that witnessed the beginnings of that great outpouring of the spirit, the Welsh revival of 1904. He listened to his host and guide, himself a convert of the revival, speak of those memorable days when the hardest hearts were melted by the presence of the Lord and when the hills and valleys rang again with the songs of Zion. It was almost too wonderful to be true, but it created questions deep down in his heart for which he could find no answer.
Arthur Wallace then says this about his own experience in the third person. If God can achieve such mighty things in times of revival, and if the spiritual labors of 50 years can be surpassed in so many days when the spirit is poured out, why, he wondered, is the church today so satisfied with the results of normal evangelism? Why are we not more concerned that there should be another great revival? Why do we not pray for it day and night? When you get a glimpse of what real revival is, and I want to do my best to paint a picture for you today, when you get a glimpse of it, when you read about it, when you experience it, you think, why aren't we praying more fervently?
Why aren't we crying out more? So why don't we pray for revival day and night? If the work of decades can be accomplished in a matter of months, why don't we concentrate more of our efforts on praying for revival? Why don't we fast and intercede and cry out for a sustained outpouring of the Spirit if it will bring so much more glory to Jesus and will touch and transform so many more lives? And in a deep lasting way of that, why isn't there a greater urgency for revival in our hearts? Those are some questions that I asked as I was thinking about this and reflecting on this years ago. You say, well, we can't just wait for revival to come.
Absolutely. Every single day we live for God. Every single day we seek to care for our families. Every single day we present our bodies afresh to the Lord. Every single day we seek to be godly witnesses wherever we are on the college campus, in the place of business, in our neighborhood, in our community, wherever we are, we seek to be witnesses and honor the Lord. And if we see one person come to the Lord over a period of months and that person is now baptized and we help disciple that person, wonderful, praise God, that's glorious.
But here's the problem. We are losing more ground than we are gaining. Over the last generation the world has changed the church more than the church has changed the world. The sins in the world that shocked us years ago are now sins that are commonplace in the church. Something has to change and that's why we cry out for revival. That's why we seek out earnestly and say, God, stretch forth your hand and do it again.
I want to give you some pictures from past revivals and then some pictures from the Brownsville revival where I served first hand where I was an eye witness to things that God was doing. One of the most famous times in the Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards' message in the summer of 1741, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The town of Enfield had been untouched.
There was outpouring that was taking place in different locations, but Enfield had been largely untouched by the visitation. Edwards was scheduled to preach there on a Sunday morning, so people were in church but they were dead in religion. There was the habit, there was the form of godliness that Paul talks about, but they were denying the power of it, the reality of it. This is in 2 Timothy 3.
Paul speaks about that very thing, people having a form of godliness but denying its power. So the people in the neighboring town were very concerned about Enfield and really sought God in prayer. And then Edwards preached a message, he had preached this before.
And some of the language today may seem a little harsh and intense, but it was very much in the culture of the day. And he pictured God in his anger and he pictured people just hanging by a thread over hell and the only thing that was holding them back from perishing was the mercy of God and of course that is the truth. And as Edwards preached, this previously godless bunch became overwhelmed with conviction. He had preached the message before but didn't see these kind of results. You have to remember Edwards was not one of these hyped up emotional jump up and down preachers.
Edwards was reading from a manuscript. And as Edwards preached about the fires of hell and the judgment of God and the guilt of human sin, people began to cry out. Literally, they began to cry out. The reports are that the pillars in the middle of the church were holding up the building. That some of them had scratches and blood on them because people were clinging to the pillars, fearing that they were going to slip down into hell and grabbing on so tightly that this began to scratch and their fingernails were bleeding.
Can you imagine that? It got so intense that one minister on the platform polled on Edwards' robe and said, Mr. Edwards, Mr. Edwards is not God a God of mercy. That's how intense the conviction became.
This was a scene from the Great Awakening. I was preaching not far from Enfield in 1989 and a pastor there said, Mike, I wrote my master's thesis on the Great Awakening for seminary. I did research. I went into the local archives and read things. He said, you know, it was summertime.
And because of summertime, windows were open and homes. And he said, Mike, I read the reports days after that message that as you walk through town, you could hear people groaning and moaning and crying under the weight of their sins. That's what happened with the arrows of conviction. You know, when Charles Finney would preach and people would come under great conviction in the Second Great Awakening in the 1800s, the early 1800s, the first several decades there. As Finney would preach and people came under conviction, he would then say, OK, we're going to have a meeting now tomorrow night or later tonight.
If you're under conviction, come. In other words, even though he did give altar calls and call people to get right with God, he would often just have a meeting the next night or later in that day so that if you're really under conviction, you'll come. In other words, it wasn't just, all right, just come to the altar, pray a little prayer, because the arrows of conviction were deep. And you can read accounts of cities transformed, of regions transformed.
Many say that the Wild West was tamed by revival, by outpouring of the Spirit in the 1800s. Friends, we need another great, sweeping revival today. I believe God's moving. I believe we're in the early stages.
But friends, there's so much more that God wants to do. All right, I'm going to come right back and dig into this and give you a picture from a young man that I know. Well, actually, he's in his 40s and a grandfather now, but known since he was a teenager.
I'm going to give you his story from Brownsville. We'll be right back afterward from our co-sponsor, Trivita. Are you tired of feeling run down, constantly battling colds, flu and infections? Trivita's Elderberry with Zinc and Vitamin C is here to give your immune system the boost it needs. Trivita's Elderberry Zinc and Vitamin C supplement is a three in one capsule scientifically formulated to support your immune system naturally. Elderberries have been cherished for centuries for their wellness benefits, and now Trivita has harnessed the immune system supporting power in every bottle of Trivita's Elderberry enhanced with zinc and vitamin C to help you fight off colds, flu and infections. Now is the time to boost your immune system and the immune systems of those you love with Trivita's three in one Elderberry Zinc and Vitamin C supplement today.
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This is the book we're teaching out of this month. We'll tell you at the end of the broadcast how you can get a copy for yourself. First, let me remind you, if you have not yet signed up for our frontline newsletter, do it today. Go to TheLineOfFire.org.
TheLineOfFire.org and sign up. You will be blessed. You will be encouraged. You'll be equipped. You'll learn something every single month. You'll look forward to this coming out.
It's absolutely free. So if you're not getting our emails, go there now. TheLineOfFire.org. We want to connect with you. We want to build you up. We want to infuse you with faith and with truth and with courage. Okay, here's an eyewitness account from Brian. Again, I've known him since he was a teenager, now in his 40s, grandfather.
Listen to what he has to say. In July of 1996, over a year into the Revival, speaking of the Brownsboro Revival, I was a 17-year-old atheist regularly doing drugs, toting guns, giving to drunkenness filled with rage and bitterness, and battling suicidal thoughts. My great-grandfather was an Assembly of God pastor, a man of holy living and an intercessor.
I had been raised in the assemblies, but at the age of 17, I had not yet been born from above. The youth pastor at my parents' church was planning a missions trip to a poverty-stricken area in Medart, Florida. His intentions were to stop for a day at the Revival on the way down. My parents asked me if I could go along, and his response was, it's a missions trip.
He's not even saved. He agreed to pray about it, and the Lord impressed him to bring me along. We arrived in Pensacola on July 20, 1996, and showed up at Brownsville Assembly of God at about 1 p.m. Already, nearly a thousand people were gathered and a large bunch near the door, waiting for the meeting, which began at 7 p.m. As an unbeliever, I thought, what is wrong with these people?
They're nuts! Why are they so excited to get into an Assembly of God church? I remember spontaneous hymns of praise rising from the throng while we waited outside in the hot Florida sun.
How great thou art! Amazing grace and several others. Pastors by on the street, the church met in the poorer area of the city. We're hearing songs of praise to the Lamb of God, and this has been common in times of revival over the course of history.
Oh, that every city would hear again of the glory of Christ through the revived hearts of his people. But here I was, in the midst of the crowd, totally detached from their joy. My heart and heart grew curious when the doors opened, as I saw men, women and children moving quickly and earnestly for a seat in the building. As I walked into the building, even as a hardened sinner, I began to sense a difference in the atmosphere. A strange pull began to affect me. I felt increasingly uncomfortable about my sin, but there was an unspoken yearning for truth, reality and salvation rising in my soul. I watched the people engaging in fervent and sincere worship, and praise was lasted well over an hour, and a conviction of my sinfulness was intensifying. I attempted to put a white blanket over it, even turning to the young man next to me and speaking in jest about the people worshipping around me.
But I could not evade or circumvent the fact that something or someone, as real as he was invisible, was moving in the midst of this people. The evangelists then brought up several women from South Korea who had come to America to pray and witness at the Atlanta Olympics. Why did you come to Brownsville for, dear sisters? To receive the Holy Spirit, they replied. Upon praying for them, they collapsed in a heap on the platform with tears flowing copiously, crying out, Oh God! Save souls in Atlanta! Souls!
Souls! The prayer went on for some time. When it subsided, the evangelists began to preach. It was a passionate call to repentance, a cry to humble ourselves, turn from sin, have faith in the work of the cross, and receive the free mercy of Jesus Christ. I later discovered that this was his message every night at the Brownsville revival, but on that night, I felt I was alone in a room with the preacher and the Holy Spirit.
The Word was like a hammer that shatters the rock, and I could not resist the Spirit any longer. I understood clearly that I had to flee from the wrath to come and receive a new heart from the God of mercy. I was undone in my sin and overcome with the revelation of the cross of Christ. I was gloriously born from above that night, and nothing has been the same since.
Glory to the Lamb that was slain. When I went back to high school the next semester, 27 students called on the name of the Lord as a result of the transformation they saw in my life. I was immediately freed from the grip of drugs, alcohol, suicidal tendencies, and rebelliousness toward my teachers and parents. One day, I even jumped in my 89th Thunderbird and ran over more than 250 of my music CDs that were filled with immoral themes and profanity.
What else could I do? I had experienced the cleanness of a forgiven heart for the first time, and I could not engage in that which contradicted it. I began preaching in youth gatherings, bearing witness to the Gospel in the streets, and leading prayer meetings.
In August of 97, I went back to Brownsville to attend the ministry school which Dr. Michael Brown was the president, from which I graduated in May of 99. It has been a remarkable journey with the Lord, and it all began on that day when I passed from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his glorious light. This was the experience of many thousands of souls who came to the Lord through the Brownsville Revival. We were witnesses of this for years as we saw souls from every background, prostitutes, wealthy businessmen, thugs, and even preachers bowed low before a holy God, crying out for mercy over their sin, having found that they were in need of cleansing as God stepped down in the midst of the gathering.
Many souls like myself entered through the doors in unbelief, dead in trespasses and sins, and were born anew of the Spirit of God, saved in the uttermost by the power of the Gospel. I remember many meetings when the fear of the Lord would grip the whole congregation of four or five thousand souls. Unbelievers were screeching and crying for mercy, intercessors weeping and wailing, and many throughout the crowd calling out, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord. Sometimes hours would go by in this manner, and you were gripped with the sense that brings to mind the words of an elder in the Hebrides Revival, tread lightly for God himself as hovering over us. I used to meet with a brother for prayer before our Bible school classes, and I recall pulling up to the school property in March of 98, where the student's morning prayer meeting was moved upon by the Lord in a profound way. When I pulled into the parking lot, students were prostrate all over the campus, laying in the grass or on the sidewalks, groaning with hunger for God and asking for mercy on behalf of our nation. Strong men were broken before the Lord, trembling and weeping in person, and everywhere in these times, the hearts of God's people seemed fixed on his throne. You were directed heavenward merely by being there. I felt as if I had stepped out of my car and into another world where the earth was permeated with God himself.
Oh, that every community of saints would be marked with this kind of reality for the glory of Christ. So here's one story from one young man that was touched in the Brownsboro Revival, and I'm an eyewitness to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of meetings, and I could tell you what happened to this young man happened to countless thousands of others, radical, dramatic transformations. I remember one night hearing from a couple. They had come to the revival separately. They were believers. They were struggling deeply in their marriage, were on the verge of divorce without either one knowing in desperation for a breakthrough in their lives.
They came to Brownsboro. Remember, they had received counseling. They had received ministry, and still they were heading to divorce.
Their differences were irreconcilable. They came to the meeting, neither one knowing the other was there. Steve Hill preached his message, and they came to the altar repenting, crying out to God for mercy, humbling themselves, receiving cleansing. And then at the altar, one was on one side of the building, the other on the other side of the building. They noticed each other.
They had no idea they were there, and they reconciled and lived a life blessed by God as a couple. Friends, these are the kind of breakthroughs that take place in the midst of revival day and night. They can happen by the thousands.
Think of what happens when they happen by the millions. Friends, America can be shaken. It is not too late. So I want to get this book in your hands, Revival or We Die. It'll really paint a picture of what revival feels like, what revival looks like. This whole testimony is printed in the book here.
We'll share others with you in days to come. But in the book, we'll paint a picture of what revival really feels like, and what it feels like in your own life, what can happen to you as you experience personal revival. One reader heads up a seminary, an American missionary heads up a seminary in Nigeria, and he said this to me, Brother Michael, I will not cumber you with a long email, only to say that revival or we die has deeply resonated with my heart and seriously stirred me up at a providential time. I've read through chapter six where we talk about, have you lost your first love? I've read it already at least four times during my morning prayer time.
Another reader said this. If after reading this book, your heart does not burn within you, and every cell in your being cries out for more, more God, then as the old saying goes, your wood is wet. My heart cries out for more, more than what can be found in organized institutional religion. It yearns to break free into true, organic New Testament Christianity without form, ceremony, or rituals. I long to be the ecclesia God intended. Let it start now with me, Lord.
Let it begin with me. That's what happened in his heart when he read revival or we die. I believe the same will happen with you. This is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for tuning in. Just a reminder that we are listener supported. If we have been a blessing to you, if you're being enriched in the word and prayer and your own walk with God through this broadcast, then stand with us so that we can reach many, many more and bless many, many more. Together, friends, we're making a difference. So go to thelineoffire.org, thelineoffire.org, and click donate.
