In the following sermon given on Sunday morning the 15th of March 1959 in the Westminster Chapel, London, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones is preaching from the text to be found in the book of Joshua, chapter 4, verses 21 to 24, and is a continuation of his series of sermons on revival. The theme, what mean these stones? Now, we are considering this incident in the history and the story of the children of Israel because it seems to us to provide us with a very perfect parallel to something that is happening this present year. I am referring to the whole question of revival and to the attention which is being drawn by means of books and articles and meetings to the fact that a hundred years ago, in 1858 and 1859, there was a great revival of religion, a great movement of the spirit of God in various countries like the United States of America, and Northern Ireland, and Wales, and Scotland, and Sweden, and in a lesser form in various other places. And here I say in this incident, in this book of Joshua, it seems to me we have a very perfect parallel. And I call attention to it because the teaching in connection with this incident does remind us of the way in which we should approach this whole question of revival today. Here it is, you remember, God commended these children of Israel to take up twelve stones from the middle of the river of Jordan where the priests had been standing while the people were passing over, he commanded them to take these twelve stones and to set them up as a memorial outside the city of Gildal, with this intention that when future generations should happen to see this memorial, these stones, they should be provoked to ask the question, what mean these stones? And then the authorities would be able to reply saying, these are here to commemorate that amazing thing which God did. when he brought your forefathers through the river of Jordan on dry land, even as he had done when he brought them through the Red Sea on dry land. Well now then, it's in that way we are using this incident. We feel that we are confronted by these various things that are being done at the present time, and that these are compelling us to ask, well, what is this about? What are these books on the 59 Revival and others? What are they telling us? What is this thing that is being commemorated and brought back to memory? And we are answering that question in terms of what we are told here. Because God's methods are always the same. The principles on which God acts never vary. So we have seen that first and foremost we are called upon to look at certain facts. Something that has literally happened. We are really dealing with history. It is simply a fact of history, recorded by the newspapers at the time, and they're still available for inspection, that something was happening in these various countries that became front-page news. Even the newspapers became interested. It was the main matter of interest and the main topic of conversation. Facts. And then we've gone on to consider the nature of these facts. And there we have seen that the vital thing was that it is the hand of the Lord, a miracle, an unusual happening. God who normally deals with us in an immediate manner, doing something immediately, manifesting himself in a most exceptional and unusual way, the miraculous element in connection with it all. And that is what we were considering together last Sunday morning. The significance of the facts, therefore, as being a manifestation of God's almighty and miraculous power. It's put here very graphically, that all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty. And we worked that out together. Well, now this morning we proceed to another aspect of it. What is the object and the purpose of all this? There it is, this thing that happened, its miraculous character. But why? Why did it happen? What is the object? What is the purpose? Or if I may put my question in a different way, and ask with reverence, why does God do this from time to time? Because we've been reminding one another that what happened a hundred years ago is but one in a series of similar events. From time to time in the long history of the Church there have been these visitations, these outpourings of God's Spirit. Nothing is clearer in the history of the Church than that. That does indeed seem to be the history of the Church. She starts in a great outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost that persisted for some time, but then it began to wane and to vanish. And the church got into a powerless condition. Some people thought the end had come. Suddenly God pours out his spirit again and the church is raised up to the heights once more. That persists but gradually passes. And so the history of the church is a sort of graph of up and down and up and down. That has been happening throughout the running centuries. Now the question we are concerned with this morning is, why does God do this from time to time? And the answer is given us very perfectly in these verses that we are looking at together. You'll notice the first reason given in that last verse is this, that in order that all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord that it is mighty. Now this is therefore the first reason that is given. God does this thing from time to time. God sends revival blessing upon the church in order that he may do something with respect to those that are outside even. He is doing something that is going to arrest the attention of all the people of the earth. Here is, we must always realize, the first reason for ever considering this matter at all. This is the main reason, the chief reason. This is my main reason for calling attention to this whole subject of revival and for urging everybody to pray for revival and to look for revival and to long for revival. This is the reason, the glory of God. You see, Israel alone represented God and His glory. All the other nations of the world were pagan. had their various gods, and they didn't believe in and worship the God of Israel. But God had chosen these people, he'd made a nation for himself, in order that through them and by means of them he might manifest his own glory and bear this testimony to all the nations of the world. That was the real function of the children of Israel. And the other nations were watching them, and they were tempted always to scoff at them and to ridicule them. Whenever the nation of Israel was defeated, or seemed to be helpless, or was in trouble, the other nations would always say, where is their God? The God of whom they've spoken so much, and of whom they've boasted so much. Where is he? Where is his power? Very well. The first reason for this action, therefore, is that all these peoples and nations may know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty. God is vindicating himself. God is asserting his own glory and his own power. God is doing this, I say, in order that those on the outside who may scoff and speak in derision may see something that will pull them up and arrest them and astound them. Now, let us never lose sight of this. This is the main reason for being concerned about revival. We shouldn't seek revival in order that we may have experiences. I've been describing to you experiences that do take place in revival, but we don't seek revival primarily for that reason. There are people who do, of course. There are people who always rush to meetings where any kind of experience is promised, and they go the round from one to the other, people who are just itching and thirsting to have experiences, always thinking of themselves. But that's not the way in which it's put here. That is the way in which it should never happen, because the primary thing is the glory of God, and the power of God, and the name of God, and the honor of God. So let us be perfectly clear about that. There are people who are ready to jump at anything that will solve their problem or the problem of the Church. You see, a few years ago, the main sections of the Christian Church were not interested at all in evangelism. They despised it. dismissed it with derision. But every section of the church today is talking a great deal about evangelism. Why? Well, simply because they're seeing their churches becoming empty. And they'll take up anything that'll help to solve them the problem of church attendance, or church finance even. And they will do likewise undoubtedly with respect to revival. But that is a terrible thing to do. No, no, our overriding, controlling reason for having any interest at all in these matters should be the glory of God. Does it grieve you, my friends, that the name of God is being taken in vain and desecrated? Does it grieve you that we are living in a godless age, and when men have sufficient arrogance to speak in public and in private, with sarcasm, about this book with its record of God's mighty deeds and actions? Well, we are living in such an age, and the main reason why we should be praying about revival is this, that we are anxious to see God's name vindicated, God's glory manifested. We should be anxious to see something happening that will arrest the nations, all the peoples, and cause them to stop and to think again. Well, here, I say, is the first thing. You'll find this constantly in the scriptures. It is in many ways one of the leading themes, if not the leading theme, in the book of the Psalms. You read your Psalms and watch those men praying for a visitation of God's Spirit, and every time this is their reason, that these heathen who are scoffing may be silenced. And the psalmist cries out that God should do something that should silence them. This is the end to which they're always looking. that God will do something and speak in such a way as to say to everybody, be still and know that I am God. That's the great theme of that 46th Psalm which we were singing together in that mythical manner just now. The nations and their princes are all being addressed. These people who are arguing against God and querying whether there is such a God. And listen, says the psalmist, here's the God who makes wars to cease. This is the God who arises and vindicates himself, and then having displayed his case, he says, be still, give up, give in, admit that I am God. Now that is the thing of which we are reminded here. God himself told Joshua to tell the people that he was doing this for that reason primarily. that he might thus manifest his glory and silence the people who are outside. And that is what revival has invariably achieved. It has caused those who are outside the church and those who are inimical to Christianity to pay attention. You see, it's a phenomenon. It is, as we were agreeing last Sunday, something miraculous. It's something that astounds them. and causes them, of necessity, to stop and to look and to consider. Now, their reason for stopping and considering may not be a good one, it may be sheer curiosity, but it doesn't matter what it is, it does make them stop and think. Now, you've got a classical example of all this, of course, in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. That's what happened on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out. And you will read that the people of Jerusalem and all the strangers who were there gathered together and said, what is this? They were arrested. They said, what is this? A phenomenon, something had happened. And they were forced to pay attention. And Peter had to get up and give his explanation, you remember. Well now, that is always what a revival does. And the point I'm trying to establish is this. that there is nothing short of a revival that will have that effect. We've tried nearly everything else, but it doesn't succeed. The masses of the people, even if they show a temporary interest, show no more than that. No, no, man can never do anything that will have this effect. This is always the action of God, if I may put it bluntly and plainly and clearly. What is needed is not a stunt. but the action of God that will stun people. That's the difference. Man can produce stunts, and he's very clever at doing that. He can think of something fresh and new, and he'll advertise it. But the people know the whole time it's men doing it. It's a stunt, they say. No, no, stunts will never lead to this desired position. But when God arises and when God acts, well, then something's happening, I say. that men are forced to pay attention to. They can't understand it, they can't explain it. Your psychologists are left without any explanation. They can explain stunts all right, but they can't explain this. That is the difference, you see, between men organizing something and God manifesting the right hand of his power and showing that it is mighty. Well, what I want to put you as an argument is this. Is there anybody who still needs to be convinced that this is the crying need of the hour? We are aware of the position of the vast majority of the people of this country. You and I were here this morning constitute but five percent of the population of this country. And though we may preach and fast and sweat and pray and do all we can, all our efforts seem to lead to nothing. Cannot you see, my dear friend, that what is needed is some mighty demonstration of the power of God, some enactment of the Almighty that will compel people to pay attention and to look and to listen. And the history of all the revivals of the past indicates so clearly that there is the effect of revival invariably and without any exception at all. That is why I'm calling attention to revival. That's why I'm urging you to pray for this. When God acts, He can do more in a minute than man with his organizing can do in fifty years. Let us realize this tremendous possibility, therefore, and plead to God to make known His power and to manifest His glory in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation of people that even blaspheme his holy name and deny his very existence. For God's sake, for the glory of his name, let us intercede and pray for a visitation of God's Spirit. Well, there is the first great reason, that all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty. But there's a second reason. And the second reason is this, that you might fear the Lord, you are God, forever. This is the thing I've been emphasizing, that revival is of great value to the Church, as well as all it does for the world. That you might know, that you might fear the Lord your God forever. Now then, what does it do for the Church? Let me enumerate some of the things that are taught here quite plainly. The first thing it does is to give the Church an unusual consciousness of the presence and the power of God. That you, the children of Israel, might fear the Lord. Now, in the tenth verse of the previous chapter, the third chapter, it is put much more explicitly and powerfully. Listen. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you. That's it. This is going to happen, said Joshua, to the people, in order that you may know that the living God is among you. Ah, you read this story of the children of Israel, and you'll see very clearly that they needed to be reminded of that. Though they were God's people, though he had done so many things for them and to them, though he'd brought them out of Egypt, though he'd brought them through the Red Sea, Though he'd led them in the wilderness and their feet didn't swell, and they never lacked food because he fed them with manna bred from heaven, yet they were constantly fearful and grumbling, looking at the other nations and peoples and their gods, and hesitant and doubtful. Oh, they behave in the manner which makes us feel that they're people who didn't realize their relationship to God. And God did this thing at the river of Jordan. in order that they might know that the Living God was among them. Now this is the supreme need of the Church today. If you were to ask me to state in one form the main trouble with the Christian Church as she is at this moment, the main trouble with every one of us in our daily life and living, I shouldn't hesitate to say that it is this. We fail to realize that the Living God is among us. What is the Church? Well, the church is this institution, this body in which God dwells. He's promised that. I will be in you, I will dwell in you, I will walk among you. That's what he says. That is what he said to these children of Israel. That is what is transferred in exactly the same way to the Christian church. The Christian church is not a human organization and institution. She is, as the Apostle Paul puts it at the end of the second chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians, she is a great building in which God dwells, an habitation of God. I will be in you, I will dwell in you, I will walk among you. Now that's an argument that's worked out in many places in the New Testament epistles. But you see, the Church doesn't seem to realize that today. People will persist in regarding the Christian church as just an institution, one institution amongst others, just a human organization. But that isn't the church. The church is this body in which God himself dwells. And what he does in revival is to remind us of that. When God acts in revival, everybody present feels and knows that God is there. Of course, we believe this. We believe this by faith. Yes, but we should know it. We should have a realization of it. We should be conscious of His nearness. And that is what revival does. I'm going to do this thing, says God, and then all of you will realize that I'm among you. I'm acting in your midst. I, the living God, have come down amongst you, I'm in you, you are my people, and I dwell in you, and I walk in you. That is what the church needs to realize today. And of course, it's the very thing she doesn't realize. It's the thing we are always forgetting. So I put that first, but then I go on to say things like this. In reminding us of that, God, of course, at the same time reminds us That the whole power that should be manifested in the Church is His power. That everything the Church does should be a manifestation of the power of God. What is the Gospel? Well, you remember the answer of the Apostle Paul? It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. How easy it is to forget that, isn't it? How easy to preach it as a system. Preach it as a collection of ideas, just preach it as a truth. Ah, but you can do that without power. There are people, says the Apostle Paul, who have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. Christianity is primarily a life, it's a power, it's a manifestation of energy. And as we realize that the living God is among us, we shall realize more and more this tremendous power. And then that'll in turn lead us to realize that the one thing that matters is that we should be rightly related to God, and always reliant upon his power. The apostles' great claim, you remember, in writing to the Corinthians, the first epistle, second chapter, is this, that when he preached to them, he didn't preach with wisdom of men. It wasn't with enticing words. of men's wisdom? He could have done that. He was a very able and a very learned and a very well-read man. But though he was going to a seat of learning, there was a university in Corinth, and he knew the mentality of the Greeks. He didn't approach them along that line at all. He tells them later that he became a fool for Christ's sake. And many of them despised him, of course, because of that. But, says the apostle, I didn't come in that way. Well, in what way then? Oh, he says, in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. This is something of which we all need to be reminded. Let me make a confession for all preachers. Do you know the standing temptation of a preacher? Well, I'll tell you. This is the besetting sin of every preacher. I'm speaking for myself also. This is the danger. That after you've prepared your sermons, you feel that all is well. You've got your two sermons ready for Sunday. Well, that's all right. You've got your sermon, you've got your notes, and you can speak, and you can deliver your message. But that isn't preaching. That can be utterly useless. Oh, it may be entertaining, there may be a certain amount of intellectual stimulus and profit in it, but that isn't preaching. Preaching is in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. And a man has to realize that after he's prepared his sermons, it doesn't matter how perfectly, that it's all waste and useless unless the power of the Spirit comes upon it and upon him. He must pray for that. Yes, but not only he. You must also pray for that. How many of you prayed before you came here today or yesterday? that the Spirit of God might come upon me and use me and use my message. You have to pray for that as well as I. Otherwise you're looking to me and to my message. No, no, we must all together look to God and realize our utter dependence upon the power that He alone can give. And you see, whenever you get a revival and God's power is manifested, you needn't urge people to pray then. They do. They want to see more and more of it. Very well, revival encourages us to do that, and that's why it's good for us to read these accounts and to look back on what God has done, that we may realize that the living God is among us, and we must pray to him to manifest this power. Negatively, of course, it means this, that he delivers us from any and every form of self-reliance. That is the curse of the Church, self-reliance. There's no difficulty at all about explaining the state of the Christian Church today. It's so perfectly simple. I'll tell you why the Church is as she is today. It's self-reliance in these forms. One, reliance upon scholarship and learning. Came in, of course, about the middle of the last century. Our people began to say, we now are becoming more educated and we've advanced. Of course, we don't want the sort of thing they had in the last century under Whitefield and Wesley and so on. We want now learned sermons and so they began to have them and great attention was paid to form and to style and to diction. Sermons were published and obviously as the man was writing them he got his eye on publication rather than on the service in which he was going to preach his sermon. Everything became learned and scholarly and philosophical and great sermons were delivered. It's one of the main causes and explanations of the state of the church today. Reliance upon human learning and knowledge and wisdom. And then, of course, the reliance upon organizing. In the last hundred years, the Church has multiplied her organizations and institutions in a way that she's never done before in all her long history. There have never been so many subsections of the Christian Church as during this present century. Everything is being organized, age groups, everything else. And there are head offices which send you down the literature telling you how to do it, how to handle children, how to handle youth, young people, advice on this and that, all perfectly organized. And yet look at the state of the church. They are relying on the organization. Others rely on their own activities. As long as they're busy, they think tremendous things are happening. And of course, if you organize and if you're active, it'll be reported in the papers. They must have something to report and there it is. And people say, tremendous things are happening, look at it. But what is happening? Look at the church, that's the answer. No, no, my dear friends, we need to learn once more the difference between bustle and business on the one hand, and the hand of the Lord that it is mighty on the other hand. You know, when God acts and when people realize that the living God is amongst them, they're humbled, they're abased. Men don't count any longer. And the reports are not of what men have done, but about what God has done and what's happened to men as the result of God's action. A revival always humbles men, abases them, casts them to the floor, makes them feel they can do nothing, fills them with a sense of reverence and of godly fear. Oh, how absent it is amongst us! How men are standing forward, but when revival comes, men are pushed back. They are humbled to the ground, I say, and the glory is given to God, because it is God's power that is in evidence. Let me hurry to something else. And this, of course, follows biological necessity. When all this happens, the fear of man is taken away from us in every form. Let me go back again to verse 10 of chapter 3. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perishites, and the Gergeshites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites. That's it. The children of Israel were about to enter into the promised land, and they'd been hearing about the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perishites, and the Gergeshites, etc. The spies had been sent forward and they came back and said, you know there are giants in that land, and when we looked at them we felt that we were but as grasshoppers. And they were trembling, they were afraid of these great powers that they've got to meet when they enter the promised land. Here's the answer. When you know that the living God is amongst you, what are the Hittites? Who are the Girgashites and the Jebusites? What are the whole lot of them put together? They become as nothing. The fear of men is taken away immediately when we realize that the living God is among us. And if ever the Church needed this, it is now. The Church is so afraid. She's afraid of organized sin, you see. This is the argument. Haven't you heard it so often? We must be doing something, they say, because look at the world. It's attracting the young people, gives them a happy, pleasant Saturday night, entertains them, teaches them how to sing and do this and that. Well now, we must do the same thing. Bring in, what is it called, your skiffle or whatever it is, into your Sunday night service. That's what they're like, you see. The world's doing it and the young people so like it. And because they're so afraid, they're going to lose their young people. We must begin to do this. Oh, what a tragedy, what a departure from this. See, they're afraid of the young people. The Church has been afraid of the young people for a long time. That's why she's multiplied these institutions to try and hold them and to attract them. Not only young people, not only organized sin in its various forms. They say, what can we do? You see, we're up against the television. There wasn't television 200 years ago. They hadn't got a radio. They hadn't got cinemas. There's our problem. What? We must do something, they say. They're afraid of these organizations and powers. And then they're terrified of learning and of knowledge. You see, they say, look what these people are saying in the brains trust and these other things, and our people are reading these things. You know, is it intellectually respectable to be a Christian? Can you really talk about miracles still and about dividing the Red Sea and Georgia? You know, people, they say, they won't believe. So we trim and modify our gospel because we're afraid of learning and of knowledge and of science. That's what the Church has been doing for a hundred years, and that's why she is as she is. And communism, it's spreading, they say. And it's got these marvellous powers. It uses these instruments. Well, we must use them, and we must get in our word over and against them. But we don't seem to be succeeding, do we? And we must get our literature... All right, go on doing all these things, I say. But if you rely upon them, you're already defeated. No, no. There is no need to be afraid of any of these powers. They've always been there. There's nothing new about all this. The Christian Church has always had to fight the world and the flesh and the devil. She had to fight the Roman Empire at the beginning. She had to fight the malignity of the Jews. She's always had these enemies who were out to exterminate her. And the Church has often quaked and feared, but never when there's been revival, because then they know that the living God is among them, and he will without fail drive out from before you, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perisites, the Bergeshites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites. He names them one by one, you see, as I've been trying to do. What are we to fear of all these things when the living God comes amongst us? Oh, for a touch of His power! Oh, that the church might realize that this is the answer, and our fear of all our enemies and opponents would vanish like the morning mist. Fear Him, ye saints! And you will then have nothing else to fear. And so the writer of the hymn puts it, and how right he is. Well, revival does that for us. And thus, you see, for me to sum it up, it makes us looking, keeps us looking to him and dependent upon him. Our supreme need, and our only need, is to know God, the living God. and the power of his might. We need nothing else, it's just that, the power of the living God, to know that the living God is among us, and that nothing else matters. So we wait upon him, we look to him, we cry out unto him, as Moses did when he was there before the Red Sea and didn't know what to do, and the people were grumbling and complaining. And God answered Moses and said, Why fallest thou upon the ground before me? Speak to the children of Israel, that they move forward. And on they went. Stand then in his great might, with all his strength imbued, and take to arm you for the fight, the of God. That's what we need, my friends, and that's why I'm urging you to pray for revival. We must look to Him. God does this in order to give us encouragement, to show us that He's among us. And the reminder of what happened a hundred years ago should lead us to turn back to Him. I say forget everything else. Forget everything else. We need to realize the presence of the living God amongst us. Let everything else be silent. This is no time for minor differences. We all need to know the touch of the power of the living God. And let us continue and wait until we know it. And then God does this, of course, for me to conclude, in order to deliver us from our enemies, enemies without enemies within. Yes, why did he do these things? Well, to bring these people out of Egypt, out of the wilderness, into the blessed land of Canaan. He does it, I say, in order to lead us to the land of blessings. Hayden, a land flowing with milk and honey. What does this mean in the church? It means this. You've never had a revival but that it has led to praise and to thanksgiving, to enjoyment at the riches of God's grace. The great characteristic of revival is ultimately praise, adoration, worship, full enjoyment, full, unmixed, and evermore. But in conclusion, let me just Let me direct your attention to one other thing. We've considered this great fact, what happens in revival. We've considered the nature of the fact, the miraculous, the almighty power of God. We've asked the question, why does God do this? I want to ask a last question. When, when does God do this? You want to know that, I hope? If you're longing and yearning, I'm sure you're asking the question, oh, when is God going to do this? We've been praying, many of us, for years. Nothing seems to happen. When, when does God do this? When does he send revival? Well, the answer is here, as it is confirmed by the history of the Church. There seem to me to be two main factors here. The first is this. seems to do this always after a period of great trial and great discouragement. Note what I'm saying. When does he do this? Well, the text reminds us of two occasions, the crossing of the Red Sea, the crossing of the River of Jordan. When does he do it? Oh, he does it, then, I say, after you've been in Egypt for a while, in the bondage, in the captivity, in the cruelty of Egypt. with the taskmasters and the lashes of their whips, trying to make you make bricks without sufficient straw. Egypt! Bondage! Aridity! Cruelty! Persecution! Trial! He does it after Egypt. He does it also after a period in the wilderness. Here are the children of Israel, right before Jordan. Yes, but they had just been forty years in the wilderness, in the howling, barren wilderness, without a home, with its storms and its trials, its testings and its provings, all that had happened to them in the wilderness. Read the story, and what a sad story it is. Yes, they've had a wilderness experience. And on top of it, they'd had another calamity, which much to many of them had seemed to be the end of all things. Moses, their great leader, had died. He'd gone up into a mountain and he'd never come back again. The men who'd come to them originally with a message from God and had addressed them in their utter serfdom when they were broken-hearted, the men who'd led them through so much, he's gone. And a man called Joshua is left to lead them. Who is he and what is he? The position you see seems to be utterly discouraging. Forty years in the wilderness and without a leader. Ah, thank God for this. It is after such experiences that God sends revival, after Egypt, after the wilderness experience. God knows. The Christian church has been in this wilderness many a long year. You go back and read the history of the church before, somewhere around about 1830 or 1840, And you will find that in many countries there used to be regular revivals of religion almost every ten years or so. It hasn't been like that. There has only been one major revival since 1859. Oh, we've passed through a barren period, that devastating higher criticism The evil that it's done in pulpits, in pews, everywhere. People have lost their belief in this living God and in the atonement and in reconciliation. Human wisdom, philosophy and learning. We've passed through one of the most barren periods in the long history of the Church. We've been like the prodigal son in that far country. spending our time in the fields with the swine and living on nothing but husks. Yes, we've been in bondage, we've been in fear, we've suffered persecution and derision, and it's still going on. We are still in the wilderness. Don't believe anything that suggests to you that we're out of it. We are not. The Church is in the wilderness. But thank God, it is always after such a period that God acts and does his mighty deeds and shows forth his glory. Yes, but that brings me to my second condition, which was this, and it seems to me to be so important. It is not only after Egypt, it is not only after the wilderness. The real moment when he does it, the moment of crisis, is this. When you are right up against the Red Sea, When you are actually on the border of Jordan, it's then he does it. You see, you can be forty years in the wilderness, the mere fact of being in the wilderness doesn't produce it. No, no, it's not only in the wilderness, but when you've actually arrived at this critical position. If I may use modern terminology, God always seems to do this, it seems to me, when we are right up against it, and so much up against it that we are hopeless and helpless. Do you remember the picture at the Red Sea? Here it is. The children of Israel have been commanded to go on. Where are they to go? Well, they were taken to a point at which on the one side was Pyre Hieroth, and on the other side Baal Ziphon, two mountains, one each side of them. Behind them? Pharaoh and his hosts and the chariots. The army of Israel, and here are the defenseless children of Israel with nothing to defend them at all. Mountain here, mountain there, the enemy behind. In front, Red Sea. Complete and entire hopelessness and despair. And the children grumbling and complaining, asking Moses, what's he mean? And Moses says, nothing to do but to fall before God. And then the answer comes, and the Red Sea is divided. Oh, it was exactly the same here at Jordan. We are even given this interesting detail, you see, that the river of Jordan was badly overflooded for long months at that time of the year. They couldn't possibly cross it. Here they are facing a flood. How can they get through? It is then that God arises and manifests the right hand of His power and gives a display of His glory. I just put this to you in the form of a challenge. Read the histories and the accounts of every revival that has ever taken place, and you will invariably find this, that the one man or the group, the little group of people who have been used in this way by God to send revival, They have always known a state of utter desperation and final despair. Every one of them. Read the journals of Whitfield, read the journals of Wesley, read the life history of all these men, read the story of the groups. They've always come to this place where they've realized their utter and absolute impotence. Their final paralysis, there's the Red Sea, here's the enemy, there are the men, they're shot in, they're shot down, they're crushed to their knees. It is always the prerequisite. It is always the moment at which God acts. And that is what, I confess, troubles me and discourages me today. The Christian church is still so healthy. so confident in herself, so sure that she only needs to organize yet another effort, still some further activity. She's not come up to the Red Sea. She's never been to Pyre Hieroth and Beelzebub. She doesn't know that experience, and until she does, I cannot see that we have much reason for anticipating a revival of religion and an outpouring of the Spirit of God. It may be, you see, that things will yet have to happen to us, infinitely worse than what we've already known. You'd have thought that two world wars would have done it, but it hasn't. You'd have thought the present position would be enough, but it isn't. God have mercy upon us. Until, I say, we arrive there, Piahirath, Beelzebub, Migdal, the enemy, the Red Sea, the utter hopelessness, the Jordan in flood, the utter impossibility, the final hopelessness and despair. May God bring us to that realization. May He so reveal His own glory and holiness to us. May He reveal unto us our utter impotence and hopelessness. May we see these things in such a way that we shall cease from men and look only to the Living God. And then there is no question He will hear us and He will manifest His glory and His power. We do hope that you've been helped by the preaching of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. 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