Here, I think, in this incident in the life of Isaac that is recorded here, we find something that is of very great value to us. The picture you see is one of Isaac in trouble, in a difficulty. If you read the context, you will find that he had been living in another part of the country, and God had blessed him in a very striking manner, so much so that Isaac had become the object of envy. of those who were living round and about him. And they had forced him to move. Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us, for thou art much mightier than we. And so Isaac is compelled to move with his family and all his servants and possessions and belongings. And he came to this valley of Gera and decided that he would dwell there. Well, of course, the moment he arrived, he was confronted by a very urgent and very desperate need, and that was the need of water. Now, I do want to emphasize that, because the need, in other words, was the need of something that is absolutely essential to life, in addition to being essential to well-being. He wasn't merely confronted by the problem of seeking some beauty spot where he might pitch his tent or erect some kind of dwelling place for himself. He wasn't looking for entertainment. He wasn't looking for luxuries. He wasn't looking for any kind of accessories to life. The whole point of the story is that he was looking for something which is an absolute essential and without which life cannot be maintained at all. Now, I'm emphasizing that for this reason, that as I was indicating last Sunday morning, the first thing we have to realize about the present position is its desperate character, is the urgency of the situation. In other words, the trouble as I see it with the Church today is that She doesn't realize, as she should, that her primary need, and her urgent need at the moment, is the need of life itself. The problem confronting us is not a problem of methods, or of organization, or of making a slight adjustment here or there, or improving things a little bit, or keeping them up to date, or anything like that. It seems to me that the whole position is one in which we are well-eared down to this basic issue. That, as I was trying to indicate last Sunday, is certainly the position as regards the world. The problem of society today is not a superficial problem, it is a very radical one. The whole outlook upon life is involved, and serious observers, as you know, are indeed appalled as they contemplate what is really taking place. I was reading a letter by a well-known medical authority only this very week, even yesterday, in which he said that he'd been charged with being behind the times and old-fashioned, and almost with saying that he wished that he were dead, as he's contemplated certain things that are taking place. And he admitted, quite frankly, that there was a great deal of truth in that. So appalled is the man at the whole trend of life and of living that he is even capable of expressing himself in such sentiments. Well, now I say that is the situation, and it is the situation confronting the Church. There is no doubt that we have been living on the capital of the past. And as you go around this country and look at the congregations, you will see that very quickly and very soon. You can carry on for a certain length of time on tradition and by custom and habit, but a point is bound to come when you've ceased to have any capital left, and then you realize that you're facing something absolutely ultimate, something which is fundamental. And that, as I say, is the whole situation today of the Christian Church. We rarely are in the position of this man, Isaac. And the problem confronting us is the need of life itself, the need of that fundamental power and vigor in every activity of the Church, which rarely can make an impact upon the world and do something vital and drastic with regard to the whole trend of affairs at the present time. So I say we must realize that it is this primitive need, if you like, the need of water, the need of life, the need of power, the need of the Spirit himself. There are times in the Church when what is needed is some sort of minor adjustment here or there. But that's not the trouble today. It isn't minor matters. It isn't third-rate and fourth-rate matters that are in the balance at the moment. It is the whole life of the Church. It is the whole question of a spiritual outlook upon life as over and against everything that is represented by the world. Very well, there is the need. Now, the great lesson here taught us is this. What did Isaac do face to face with this particular need? Now, here is our message. And you notice, first of all, what he didn't do. It's so significant, it's so important for us. Here he is, he's been driven out, he's been caused to move, he's got a family, he's got possessions, he's got servants, he's got animals, and if they don't find water soon, well, life itself will come to an end, they'll perish. Well now then, face to face with this urgent need, what does he do? Well, you notice that he doesn't send for the prospectors. He doesn't send for the water diviners. He doesn't send for these men who are experts in seeking and discovering fresh supplies of water. No, the whole message is that Isaac digged again the wells of water which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father. Now here again is a message surely that is sorely needed. Because the whole outlook seems to be the very reverse of that of Isaac, as one looks at it in the church in general. The kind of thing you read constantly in the books and the religious journals is this. What we need, they say, is a message for this atomic age. Or a message for this second Elizabethan period. And therefore we must all be setting out in a quest for truth. a search for the message that is needed. So we call in the prospectors. We look to the scientists. We look to philosophy. Then psychology has got its contribution to make. We call for the latest knowledge and learning. We want the very last advance in science and in culture in every shape and form. And the whole idea is that Admittedly the world is in a very serious predicament and therefore it behoves all men of understanding to come together and pool their resources, call a congress of world faiths, bring in everybody who believes in religion anyhow and worships any sort of God. Let's try and get together to see if we can't arrive at the principle and the truth that is needed. And so at the present time The thing that is most obvious about the life of the Church in general is the multiplicity of conferences. And there they're trying to find the formula, trying to discover some word, trying to discover some message. It's this atomic age, you see, we're in this, and we must have a message for this atomic age, and so on. The 20th century, that's the whole emphasis. And instead of doing what Isaac did, We are calling in the prospectors and the water diviners, trying to see if we can discover a source of supply of water somewhere that will enable us to continue. Now, the emphasis is, I say, that Isaac did nothing of the kind. But what he did was this. Isaac digged again the wells of water which they had digged in the days of Abraham. his father. Why did he do this? Well, I think the wisdom of this is perfectly clear and quite obvious. Isaac realized that his situation was such that it was no time for experimentation. The position, I say, was so urgent that if they didn't have water and that very quickly, they would all perish. And how does he argue in such a position? Well, he argues like this. He says there is no need for us to prospect and send for the water diviners. My father Abraham was once in this area and if there was one thing that characterized Abraham above everything else it was that he was an expert on this very question of finding water and sinking wells. Now you read the story of Abraham in the earlier chapters of Genesis and you will find exactly what I mean by that statement. Isaac knew that Abraham had found water. Wherever he went, he always succeeded, and he dug his wells, and he had an abundant supply. So Isaac argues like this. He says, My immediate business is to make certain that we've got a supply. Then, having got a supply and being sure of a supply, if we like, we can prospect, we may try to seek for a further supply, we can try our experiments. But a man who experiments in the midst of a crisis is a fool. The first thing to do is to make certain that you have a guaranteed supply, that you have that vital source which will enable you to live and to continue, and then perhaps allow you to do these various other things. That, it seems to me, was clearly the reasoning of Isaac. He said, Ah, my father was here. Now then, where did he sink these wells? You can go there with certainty and with assurance and confidence, for you'll find water there. My father knew what he was doing, and his whole life proves that he was a success in this matter. So back he went to the wells of water which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father. Well now then, this brings us, of course, inevitably to our theme this Sunday morning. If you like it as a principle, what I'm saying is that there is great value in the reading of Church history and the study of the past, and that surely nothing is more important for us at this present time than to read the history of the past and to discover its lessons. And I suggest we should do that for the very reasons which impelled Isaac to dig again the wells which they had digged in the days of Abram his father. Now there is nothing that I know of that is quite so foolish as to ignore the past. And a man who does ignore the past and assumes that our problems are quite new and that therefore the pastor has nothing at all to teach us. He is a man who is not only grossly ignorant of the scriptures, but he is equally ignorant of the greatest lessons even of secular history. But I think you will agree that that is the mentality that is governing the outlook of the vast majority of the present time. You see, the basic assumption is that our problems are new, that they're quite unique, and that the Church and the world have never been confronted by such problems before. Now, there is one very interesting thing about this year, 1959. It is, as I've been saying, the centenary of that mighty outpouring of the Spirit of God that was experienced in the United States and in Northern Ireland and Wales and Scotland and even parts of England in 1859, but it is also the centenary of something else, and that is the publication of that famous book by Charles Darwin called The Origin of Species. And there is no doubt at all that it is Darwin's book that is governing the outlook of the vast majority today, not only in the world but, alas, in the Church. And the Darwinian philosophy, of course, in its essence is just this, is this question of evolution. And it is said to affect the whole of life. Darwin himself wasn't much concerned about that, but his co-adjutors, people like Huxley and still more perhaps the philosopher Spencer, they took hold of this principle. They said this is working in the whole of life. this progress, this development, this advancement, everything's going upwards, moving forwards, and therefore, at any given point, you are of necessity in a superior position to that which went before. Now, the Church has taken hold of this idea, and therefore she tends to argue that our position in mid-twentieth century is essentially different from the position that has ever been known before. And therefore we must ignore the past. We can forget it. It cannot possibly help us. It wasn't confronted by our problems and difficulties. It hadn't our knowledge, and so on and so forth. So the whole outlook and mentality today is one which is opposed to going back to digging again the wells which they had digged in the days of Abram, his father. No, no, they say, the position is quite new. Now this is of all the fallacies the most fatal, and for these reasons. God is still the same. There is no difference in God as between today and a hundred years ago. God is the same today as he was a thousand years ago, and two thousand years ago, and way back six thousand years ago in the time of Abraham. God is from everlasting to everlasting. He doesn't change at all. But not only is that true, it is equally true to say that man is still the same. You see, if it could be established that God is somehow different and that man is somehow different, I'd be ready to listen to this argument that assumes that our problems are unique and that therefore we mustn't look back. But man is still precisely the same as he always has been. It is to me almost incredible and incomprehensible that anybody who has ever read the Bible at all, or indeed even human history, could possibly dispute this, even for a second, what superficial thinkers we are. We are assuming that because man can ride in an aeroplane and split the atom, that he's somehow different from his forefathers who couldn't do that. But that isn't man. Man himself you discover by looking into how he thinks, what he really is interested in and how he reacts. And what is man interested in today? Well, man today is primarily and fundamentally interested in the very things that they were interested in 6,000 years ago, 4,000 years ago in the time of Abraham. You see, you just read your newspapers and you see that the major interests of man still are Eating, drinking, making war, sex, pleasure of various types. They're all here in the Old Testament, and men are still doing the same things. Look at the major social problems confronting us today. And you'll find all of them in the Bible. Theft, robbery, violence, jealousy, envy, infidelity, divorce, separation, all these things. perversions, every one of them is in the Bible. These are the problems of men today as they've always been. It's not a new problem. Abram had the problem of finding water. Isaac has precisely the same problem. And the problems of men and of living in society have not changed at all in spite of the passage of all the years. All the differences are on the surface They're irrelevant and they're immaterial. God remains the same. Man remains the same. Yes, and the New Testament reminds us that the solution to the problem remains the same. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. So that there is nothing, it seems to me, that is quite so hopeless. as this tacit assumption of the modern men in his overweening conceit and pride that he is something different and that his problems are quite new and entirely and essentially different from those confronting all his forefathers. No, no, listen to the wisdom of Isaac. See the urgency of the position and remember that Abram was a man who knew what he was doing. The history of the past has a great deal to tell us. Well, what does it tell us? Well, here are two of the main things that it does tell us. You look back across the history of the Christian church, and this is what you'll find immediately. That the story of the church has not been a straight line, a level, a record of achievement, it hasn't been that at all. The history of the church has been a history of ups and downs and ups and downs. It's there on the very surface. You go back into the history of the past and you'll find that there have been periods in the history of the church when she has been full of life and vigor and power. The very statistics prove that people crowded to the house of God The attendance upon public worship manifested it. The whole numbers of people who were anxious and eager to belong to the Christian church, there it is. The church was filled with life and she had great power. The gospel was preached with authority. Large numbers of people were converted regularly, day by day and week by week. Christian people delighted in prayer. You didn't have to whip them up to prayer meetings. You couldn't keep them from them. They didn't want to go home, they'd stay all night praying. The whole church was alive and full of power and of vigor and of might. And men and women were able to tell of rich experiences of the grace of God, visitations of His Spirit, and knowledge of the love of God that thrilled them and moved them and made them feel that it was more precious than the whole world. End is a consequence of all that. the whole life of the country affected and changed. Now, I could give you endless examples of this, but let me take one only which is the most notable of all, and that is perhaps the evangelical awakening of two hundred years ago. That is what happened then, and that is why your best secular historians are ready to admit and to agree that it was that evangelical awakening in the time of Whitfield and the Westlers that probably saved this country from an experience such as they had in France in the French Revolution. Now, that's the opinion of secular historians. You see, the Church was so filled with life and with power that the whole of society was affected. And the influence of that evangelical awakening upon the life of the last century is again something that is admitted freely by all who are aware of the facts. And indeed, the same thing happened a hundred years ago in the revival to which I have been referring. And so it has happened in every revival. Well now then, that is what you find when you go back. The Church hasn't always been as she is now. You've seen these tremendous periods of life and vigor and of power. Ah yes, but what you notice also is this. And this is where it is so encouraging to go back into history. These glorious periods of revival and of reawakening have often followed periods of great drought, great deadness, apathy and lifelessness in the history of the Church. Every one of them. As you find these great peaks, you will find the troughs. You will see that the Church has many a time been as she is today, counting so little in the life of the world and of society, so lacking in life and vigor and power and witness and all that accompanies it. You will find that that has happened many and many a time before, that there has been this desperate, urgent need even as it confronts us today. And then, after that has come this mighty uplift. this outpouring of the Spirit of God. Now there is one good reason, therefore, for going back into the history of the past, and not just looking at our own problems and saying, oh, now then, what can we do about improving the technique, improving our methods in this respect or that respect? That's what's being done, isn't it? exploring the problem, trying to amend a little bit here and make a little adjustment there, trying to bring up to date our machinery. No, no, that isn't the problem. We must go back and learn that this is the lesson of history. These awful troughs and the only way in which the church can be lifted out of them. Man is still precisely the same as he always has been. And the problems of man and of living in society have not changed at all in spite of the passage of all the years. All the differences are on the surface. They are irrelevant and they are immaterial. God remains the same. Man remains the same. Yes, and the New Testament reminds us that the solution to the problem remains the same. the same yesterday, today, and forever? So that there is nothing, it seems to me, that is quite so hopeless as this tacit assumption of the modern man in his overweening conceit and pride that he is something different and that his problems are quite new and entirely and essentially different. from those confronting all his forefathers. No, no, listen to the wisdom of Isaac. See the urgency of the position and remember that Abram was a man who knew what he was doing. The history of the past has a great deal to tell us. Well, what does it tell us? Well, here are two of the main things that it does tell us. You look back across the history of the Christian church and this is what you'll find immediately. that the story of the Church has not been a straight line, a level, a record of achievement. It hasn't been that at all. The history of the Church has been a history of ups and downs and ups and downs. It's there on the very surface. You go back into the history of the past and you'll find that there have been periods in the history of the Church when she has been full of life and vigor and power. The very statistics prove that. People crowded to the house of God. The attendance upon public worship manifested it. The whole numbers of people were anxious and eager to belong to the Christian Church. There it is. The Church was filled with life and she had great power. Gospel was preached with authority. Large numbers of people were converted regularly, day by day and week by week. Christian people delighted in prayer. You didn't have to whip them up to prayer meetings. You couldn't keep them from them. They didn't want to go home. They'd stay all night praying. The whole church was alive and full of power and of vigor and of might. And men and women were able to tell of rich experiences of the grace of God, visitations of His Spirit, and knowledge of the love of God that thrilled them and moved them and made them feel that it was more precious than the whole world. And as a consequence of all that, the whole life of the country affected and changed. Now, I could give you endless examples of this. But let me take one only which is the most notable of all, and that is perhaps the evangelical awakening of two hundred years ago. That is what happened then. And that is why your best secular historians are ready to admit and to agree that it was that evangelical awakening in the time of Whitfield and the Westlers that probably saved this country from an experience such as they had in France in the French Revolution. Now, that's the opinion of secular historians. You see, the Church was so filled with life and with power that the whole of society was affected. And the influence of that evangelical awakening upon the life of the last century is again something that is admitted freely by all who are aware of the facts. And indeed, the same thing happened a hundred years ago in the revival to which I have been referring. And so it has happened in every revival. Well now then, that is what you find when you go back. The Church hasn't always been as she is now. You've seen these tremendous periods of life and vigor and of power. Ah yes, but what you notice also is this. And this is where it is so encouraging to go back into history. These glorious periods of revival and of reawakening have often followed periods of great drought, great deadness, apathy, and lifelessness in the history of the Church. Every one of them. As you find these great peaks, you will find the troughs. You will see that the Church has many a time been, as she is today, counting so little in the life of the world and of society, so lacking in life and vigor and power and witness and all that accompanies it. You will find that that has happened many and many a time before, that there has been this desperate, urgent need, even as it confronts us today. And then, after that has come this mighty upheaval, this outpouring of the Spirit of God. Now there is one good reason, therefore, for going back into the history of the past, and not just looking at our own problems and saying, oh, now then, what can we do about improving the technique, improving our methods in this respect or that respect? That's what's being done, isn't it? exploring the problem, trying to amend a little bit here and make a little adjustment there, trying to bring up to date our machinery. No, no, that isn't the problem. We must go back and learn that this is the lesson of history. These awful troughs and the only way in which the church can be lifted out of them. And my second principle is this one. Any reading of church history, even that which is cursory and superficial, will, I think, bring out this principle abundantly clearly, that every time you do get one of these great and glorious and mighty periods, you will find that in every instant It seems to be a returning to something that had obtained before. Indeed, I'll go further. You will find that every one of them seems to be a returning to what you can read and find in the book of the Acts of the Apostles. Every time when the Church is thus revived, she seems to be doing what Isaac did. She's going back to something that had happened before and rediscovering it. and there finding the ancient supply. Now there is nothing I know of that is more striking in the history of the Church than just that principle. I can put it to you like this. Read the story of the great revivals with which God has visited the Church throughout the centuries, and you will find that it always seems to be almost precisely the same thing. Try it another way. Having tried it like this historically, try it geographically. Read the stories of revivals in England, Great Britain, America, Africa, China, Korea, Manchuria, India, doesn't matter where you go. Any part of the world you may like to choose. It doesn't matter where you are nor when you're there. You will find that every time what has happened and what is happening seems to be an exact repetition of what has always happened at such times and on such occasions. Now, this is surely something that we cannot afford to ignore. In our desperate need at the present time, in this urgent need of life and power, this water without which we can achieve nothing and cannot even exist. Here is a great record and testimony that comes to us from the past. God has dealt with such occasions in ages past, and He is still the same. There is a supply available if only we go to it and go for it. That's the message. Well, now then, that brings me to my next principle, which is this. Isaac, in his wisdom, decides to go back. He is going to make certain of a supply. So he commends his men to go to those old wells which have been digged by Abraham, his father. And back they go. So my next principle is this, what Isaac found What did Isaac and his men find when they went back to the old wells? Well, they found this, that the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abram. You are told exactly the same thing in the fifteenth verse. For all the wells which his father's servants had digged in the days of Abram his father, the Philistines had stopped them and filled them with earth. So that when they went back to these old wells, that is what they found. In other words, we can put it like this. They went back to the old wells, yes, and the water is still there in the old wells, but they couldn't see it. And the water wasn't available. The water is there, yes, but they can't see any sign of it. They can't obtain it, they can't use it. Now here is a wonderful picture, isn't it? There, down in the depths, is that old, pristine supply of water. And here are men in a desperate need. They say, now, the water is there. But the problem is, how can we get hold of it? And what's happened here? What's gone wrong? Why aren't we seeing water? Why can't we put in our vessels and draw water? The answer is that the Philistines had stopped the wells. They had filled them up with earth and with rubbish and refuse, so that though the water is there, it isn't available and it isn't visible. If there is one thing I want to stress and to impress more than anything else, it is this principle. My dear friends, There is only one explanation of the state of the Christian Church today. It is the work of the Philistines. The water is there. Well, why don't we see it? Why are we not able to drink of it? The Philistines have been here, and they filled the wells with the earth and the rubbish and the refuse. And that is the immediate matter confronting us. Now, the one thing that tempts me at times to be impatient is just this, that the church doesn't seem to see this, doesn't seem to realize it, and isn't ready to face it. And what makes me more impatient than all is that so many evangelical people are not ready to face this. I'm not a controversialist, says a man. I'd like to preach a positive gospel. We must be kind and loving. We mustn't be critical in these times. The problem is so urgent. We must all stand together. If a man calls himself a Christian, let's all get under the same umbrella. Now I say that as long as you indulge in that thinking and that kind of mentality, the problem will go from bad to worse. The cause of the problem is the work of the Philistines, and it's nothing but that. Let me emphasize this, therefore, by putting it like this. The troubles confronting the Church today, the problem confronting her, is not the new circumstances in which we find ourselves. You see, that's what we're always being told, isn't it? Until we're all, I hope, sick and tired of it. the wireless, the television, the motor car, and all the things that are being offered to the modern man. There, we are told, is the problem. The Church has never had such a battle to fight in her life. All these things that draw people away, there's the problem of the Church. And we are such experts on these things, aren't we? And they're all completely irrelevant. Every one of them. And I'll tell you why. In different forms, those things have always been there. Always. Now that is where you see it's so important to read history. Before that evangelical awakening of 200 years ago, the churches were as empty as they are today, perhaps even more so. And they couldn't get the people to come to listen to the preaching of the gospel. Why? Well, they were interested in other things. But you say they hadn't got televisions. I know. But you know, they greatly enjoyed cockfighting. They greatly enjoyed card playing. They greatly enjoyed gambling. They greatly enjoyed drinking. The world has never been at a loss to find an excuse not to go to church and to listen to the preaching of the gospel. The thinking of today is so monstrously superficial. Because there's a change in the form of the pleasure, we think that the whole situation is new, and we talk about this problem of the 20th century and all the things that are against us. Hell and the devil have always been against the Church. The world has always hated the message and has never been short of an excuse to avoid it. There is nothing in that argument at all. Ah, but wait a minute, says somebody. What about the new knowledge? Perhaps you're right in what you say about the sins of 200 years ago and 4,000 years ago, but my dear sir, what about the new knowledge? Here's our problem. Here is this peculiar something that applies only to the 20th century. You know, an act was passed in 1870 giving popular education, and if you ignore that, well, you're going to fly in the face of facts. Everybody's educated now. And everybody's got learning, and you see they're listening to these great men lecturing about science and about the atom. Man is cultured today and so sophisticated. This tremendous advance in knowledge all along the line. And are you asking us to believe that the problem and the position are still exactly the same? Well, I am, and for this good reason. That all this agreed, tremendous advance in scientific knowledge has nothing whatsoever to do with this problem. Nothing whatsoever. If you could show me how this new knowledge in any way makes a difference to God, I'd be ready to listen to you. But it doesn't. He's the God who made the atom. Man's only just beginning to discover what God did, and what God has done, and what God is still doing. So you see, it makes no difference to God at all. I'll take all this knowledge. I don't care what department. I'm issuing this as an open challenge and I'm prepared to defend my position wherever you like and whenever you like. Where is any glimpse or glimmer of modern knowledge that in any way touches or affects this problem of God and man man's soul in its relationship to God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who he is and what he has done. What has any of this knowledge to do with that? It has none at all. But on top of that, I can remind you of this. You see, we talk about our modern knowledge as if it had changed the whole situation. You go back and read the history of the Church 250 years ago and what you find. Well, then that was the period of what was called deism, the period before the great evangelical awakening of that time. And then, you see, as I've reminded you, people didn't go to places of worship. Why? Well, it was because of their knowledge. They said exactly the same thing. There had been a great scientific awakening in the middle of the 17th century. Isaac Newton and others had lived. Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood. The Royal Society had been founded, you remember, in the early days of Charles II. There was a great awakening of scientific knowledge, and the whole world had become scientific and rationalistic. You read the story of the fight the Church had with the rationalism of the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, and you'll find that people then were saying exactly what they're saying now. It was this new knowledge, this new understanding. all that physics and astronomy and all these things have brought into being. There, they said, was the problem. The fact of the matter is that the Church has always had to meet that self-same argument, and it is as irrelevant and as futile today as it has always been in the previous centuries. Then let me mention one other thing. I'm just dealing with the arguments that are being brought forward by the church. These are our problems, our peculiar circumstances, this new knowledge. And then the divided church, all this we are told is the thing. Of course they say, you're perfectly right when you're emphasizing that the position is desperate and that unless something happens soon, indeed the whole future of the church is involved. But they say, what's the cause of it? Oh, this is only one explanation, the divided church. So the thing that is being emphasized above everything else is the need for church unity. We must all come together. We must all be one in a great organization. Then we'll be able to confront the divided church. They say you'll never get blessing while the church is divided. You cannot evangelize while the church is divided. Those are their statements. What is the answer? Well, it's all in church history. You see, they don't read it. And if they read it, they forget it. They're so blinded by the prejudice that they deny blatant facts. What are the facts? They are these. That in the past, even when the Church has been acutely divided, more so than she is today, God has sent revival. Great blessing has been experienced. There were endless divisions in the Church a hundred years ago in America and in Northern Ireland. They were divided up into the same denominations as today, and even more so. Yet, though that was the fact, God sent his blessing and poured out his Spirit. It is a lie to say that the division of the Church is the one cause of a lack of blessing. It isn't that. Because the history shows this very plainly. that God sends this blessing even when the church is divided, and that the coming of the revival has two main effects. One, that it blesses all the denominations practically, irrespective of their divisions, and for the time being brings them together in a marvellous unity. There has never been anything that has so promoted spiritual unity as revival. But a revival also invariably has another effect. And that is that it creates a new and a fresh division. Division. And why does he do so? He does so for this reason. Those who have experienced the blessing and the power of God are naturally one, and they come together. There are others who dislike it all, and who criticize it all, and who condemn it all, and who are outside it all, and the division comes in. John Wesley never wanted to leave the Church of England, but Methodism had to come out, was driven out. The division was caused by the Revival. It's happened every time. The Protestant Reformation. Luther didn't set out to divide the Church of Rome, but the blessing of the Revival divided the Church of Rome into Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. You always get this, this is pure history. And yet we are told, you see, the one obstacle is the divided Church. It is just unutterable rubbish. It's the rubbish of the Philistines. This is the thing that's standing between us, amongst others, and the water and the supply that we are so sorely in need of. So I say that we must dismiss all these things and realize that these are not the hindrances, these are not the problem. The problem, in other words, as Isaac found is that this nefarious work of the Philistines has been blocking the wells, concealing the water, standing between the people and the blessings of God. Very well, I'm afraid I've got to leave it at that this morning. But obviously and clearly we've got to go on to consider what this work of the Philistines is. We've got to be honest. We've got to be blunt. We've got to be plain and clear. We've got to have the courage of conviction. We need the witness and the testimony of the Spirit as we do, so let us pray for it, that God will give us honest minds to face the facts as they are. that we may see the real cause of trouble, so that having seen it, we shall be able again to emulate the example of Isaac and clear out the rubbish of the Philistines, and come again across the ancient supply of the water of God, the power of the Spirit, and enter with all God's people into a period of unusual blessing and a mighty outpouring of His Holy Spirit. May God enable us to do so. We do hope that you've been helped by the preaching of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. The MLJ Trust retains exclusive copyright ownership to all audio files of Dr. Lloyd-Jones sermons, including all derivatives, such as translations, modifications, or edited versions of the files. You must gain written permission to license, distribute, or broadcast the audio files, and under no circumstance may the files be offered for sale to or by a third party. 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