Blessing that is, I hope you make plans to be here again tomorrow night. Surely you wouldn't miss revival to go to the grocery store. You wouldn't do that. God will wilt your lettuce. Yeah, I guarantee you, you need to be right here in the revival meeting. Some of you I'm seeing for the first time. Thank you for being here. And it's a great honor to have you in the service. I love your pastor and his wife and his family, his boy. And I'm just so glad he allowed me to come and be with you tonight. Let me get right into the message. Second Chronicles chapter seven. I want to tell you what's happened here now Solomon has dedicated The temple to God had been in the tabernacle for many years But Solomon has come and built the temple and he finished it during his day and for seven days he offered 22,000 oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep Israel at that time when he erected the temple was in the presence of nothing less than a God-sent revival and But when revival dies, one's spiritual walk becomes dim and distant. It affects the power of sin coming back in our lives. It affects our nation. It affects the future of our local church if we don't have a real revival. Real revival has become a foreign language to this generation. They're content with what they have because they don't know what they're missing. The condition of the average church that I'm preaching in after 45 years of doing this is cold, dead, lifeless, filled with groups and cliques and carnality with nothing but a bunch of fussing and fighting and backbiting and strife. We've gone from prayer warriors to social gatherings, from altar calls to fellowship halls, from preaching to playing, and from worship to entertainment. Our nation tonight is corrupt. Our children are wayward. Our lives are sinful. And our churches are nothing more than memorials of what God used to do in our communities. Somewhere, somehow, somebody needs to break out of the mold and long for a fresh breath of God to move among His people. So with that in mind, I want to pick up in verse number 12 of 2 Chronicles chapter 7. We know the great verse 14 is the verse of revival. But brother Lyle, watch this in verse 12. Never seen this before. And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice. Referring to the temple. And he said, if I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among the people, what are you going to do about it? If my people... which are called by My name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven. I will forgive their sin, and I will heal their land." Now here's what I want to show you that I've never seen before. When Solomon dedicated the temple, he had 4,000 priests that did nothing but shout from sun up to sun down. He had the largest choir that Israel had ever known. Millions of people, Jews, had gathered around this temple. You think if God was going to speak to him about revival, He would have done it in front of the 4,000 priests. But He didn't. You think if God was going to speak to him about having a revival, He would have spoke to the largest choir that Israel ever had. But He didn't. You think if God was going to speak to Solomon about having a real earth-shaking revival, He'd have done it in front of all the millions of the congregation. But He didn't. And I've never seen this before. The Bible said in verse number 12, God spoke to him at night. God spoke to him about revival when He was alone. Why did He do it when He was by Himself? Because God was saying to him, you can have revival without a choir. You can have revival without a crowd. You can have revival without a bunch of preachers. Because revival does not necessarily start with a congregation. It starts with you. So I want to preach tonight on the subject, I Just Need One. I think we have been warped in our philosophy about God visiting our churches. I think we feel like that it's got to be some great sweeping through all at one time, and everybody hit the altar at one time. It'd be wonderful if that did happen. But in my 45 years of being in evangelism, every revival I've been in, and I've preached 14 weeks in a row in one church, I've seen God save over 1,800 people in a revival meeting. It did not start with the crowd, it ended up there. But it started out with just a couple that got serious about God and having revival in their own life first. So before we think about it reaching our church, or reaching our community, or even reaching our state, why don't we focus in on it just reaching us? It's very simple how to have a God-sent revival. It takes three things that I want to mention to you and I'm leaving because it's a 45-minute ride back to my motel and it's the dadgummiest road I've ever been on in my life. When I got here, I threw up stuff I ate when I was a kid. I've never... Who in the blue blazes designed these roads had to be drunker than a bald owl when they carved them out? So let me give you three points, forgive me for being brief, but I got to get out of here and get back to America. Number one, what does it take for God to do something with just you? All it takes is for somebody to get humble. Isn't that simple? God said, if my people which are called by my name would humble themselves, Humble means to bow down before He that is worthy, and give Him the praise and honor that's due to Him. Humble means to be submissive. It means to be brought low. It means to be crushed. Here's why humility is so important. 1 Peter 5.5 said, God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. You see what I'm saying? 1 Peter 5.6, it also says, Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God. Matthew chapter 23, the Bible says, if we humble ourselves, He will exalt us and put His power on us in due time. In Isaiah 57, God said, I will revive the humble in spirit. Oh, I believe we're just a few steps away from God moving in our churches again. And all we've got to do is get off our lofty, high-mindedness and get back on our knees and realize that on our best day, we are nothing but dust. And without God, we are nothing. And all of us ought to be in the blackened pit of hell tonight. And the only reason why we're not is the good saving grace of Almighty God. Humble yourselves. Can you all hear me in the back all right? Can you hear me back there? Good. I'll give you an illustration about humility. There was a rich farmer one day. And he had an old poor man down in a ditch and he had a kaiser blade and he was clearing out the ditch, you old timers remember the kaiser blades. And he was clearing out that ditch and he was a sharecropper and all he had was two pairs of blue jeans and lived in a little old shack on the property. And the man that owned the place rode a big white stallion and had on the finest clothes money could buy. He rode by the ditch one day while the old man was cleaning out and the old man was singing and laughing and smiling. And the man that owned the property said to him, what are you smiling about old man? All you have is two pair of coveralls. You live in a little old shack I give you. You don't have a dime in your pocket. You'll never amount to nothing. What are you smiling and singing about?" He said, Sir, I'm not smiling because of what I got down here. I'm smiling because I got what I got over there. You see, I've been born again. And I belong to the Lord. And the Lord said one of these days I'll get to lay this down. And I'm going to live in the city of God where nobody grows old and nobody's sick and nobody ever says goodbye and nobody ever dies. So you see, I'm not laughing because of what I am here. I'm laughing because of what I'm going to be over there. And the old man stopped his horse and said to the old man, how do you get saved anyhow? He said, there's nothing to it. Crawl down off that big white horse, walk across that field, get inside that barbed wire fence, wallow in all that slop with them hogs, and when you've wallowed in it from head to toe, just lift your hands up in the air and ask God to save you. He said, are you out of your mind? I own all this property. I own these horses. I've got money in the bank. You don't have nothing but a change of coveralls and you telling me I got a waller with slime to get saved. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'd rather go to hell. The old man said, suit yourself boss. Went back to working. The next day the boss came out and he was singing and laughing with that Kaiser blade and he stopped his horse and said, I want you to tell me one more time, how does somebody get saved and know they're going to heaven? He said, ain't nothing to do with it. Crawl down off that big old white horse, boss. Walk out across that field. Get inside that barbed wire fence, wallow the hogs till you're covered in head to toe. Just hold your hands up and say, Jesus save me. God will save you. He said, I'm telling you, I'll go to hell before I do that. He said, suit yourself boss, I got work to do. The next day he come out again. It had been bothering the old boy about going to heaven or hell. And he came out again and he went by the old man, and the old man was working with the kaiser blade, and he looked down the road and the horse was tied to a tree. An old fella that owned all the property was walking across the field, and he waited until he got to the edge of the barbed wire he was fixing to crawl through. And he said, Sir, what are you doing? He said, If I got a waller in this pit and hold my hands up, I don't want to go to hell when I die. I want to know that I know Jesus and I'm going to heaven. And if I've got to wallow in that pit, that's exactly what I'm willing to do. And the old man looked at the boss and said, you don't have to go through that barbed wire fence, you don't have to wallow in that mire, you've just got to be willing to. And I'm telling you, brother, when God's people get back to the attitude where we quit worrying about what we can and can't do, where we can and can't go, who we can run with and what we can say, and we humble ourselves under the hand of Almighty God. We're taking a giant step to God! Move it in our churches again! Can I get an amen? All it takes is a little humility. Number two, all it takes is a little honesty. The Bible said if you turn from your wicked ways, we have to get back to admitting that our lifestyle has issues that need to be removed from our heart and our lives. And here's a big step, preacher man, that we have trouble with in this generation. We've got to take full responsibility of our actions and our condition. Would you quit blaming everybody else because you're screwed up? You're screwed up because you want to be screwed up. Now you can blame it on your mom and your daddy and your husband and your wife and your grandparents and your chihuahua. But the truth of the matter is, you're messed up because you messed your life up. And as long as you're blaming everybody else, you're never going to have revival in your heart. You've got to come clean with God. You've got to get honest with God. The old song said, it's not my sister or my brother, but it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. When's the last time you got honest with God and took sides with the Bible against yourself? See your standing as God sees it and not as your buddy or your friend or your family. Confess to God our weaknesses and our failures and turn from them in repentance. I was reading an illustration the other day. This church, every time it had revival, an old boy would get up and he'd run to the altar. You could hear him screaming all over the church, Fill me up, Lord! Fill me up! Every time they'd have revival, he'd hit the altar. He wouldn't last two weeks, he'd be back out again. Next revival would come, here he'd come. First one hit the altar. Fill me up, Lord, please! Fill me up! He did that for several years. They were having another revival, and sure enough, here he'd come. He hit that altar, and a little boy got down beside him. And the old man yelled, Fill me up! And the little boy said, Don't do it, Lord! He leaks! And that's just about where most people are, brother. God can't fill them up because they leak. I remember as a 19-year-old boy getting serious about my walk with God. I remember the Lord reading those verses to me in a meeting and God speaking to me about putting your hand to the plow and never looking back. And I remember being a second-chance Christian and I hit that altar that night and I said, Lord, 45 years ago, if you'll let me grab that plow, I'll never look back. I'll never quit. I'll never let you down. I'll serve you to the day I die. That's been 45 years ago. You know why I'm still doing it? Because I got humble and I got honest. I try to exercise and run or go to the gym every day except Sundays. As fat as I am, I don't look like it, but I do. And I was running one day and I was coming down my gravel driveway. And while I was running, a snake went across my driveway, a real one. And without even praying, the Holy Ghost said, run! So I took off running the other way. I'm afraid of five kinds of snakes. Live ones, dead ones, rubber ones, big ones, and little ones. I'm afraid of all of them. So I called my neighbor to tell it, because I stutter when I see a snake. So I called my neighbor and I said, there's a snake on the way to your yard. And he asked me the dumbest question I've ever been asked in my life. He said, was it poisonous? Bless God, I don't know if it had a biohazard tag on it or not. They're all poisonous as far as I'm concerned. He said, but if you look, that's what he said. He said, there's a little yellow line under their bottom lip. I said, listen Jack, if you think I'm getting close enough to a snake to see if it wears chapstick, you're out of your ever loving mind. Scared to death of a snake. I hate a snake. You want a new door in this auditorium, just start handling snakes. I'll give you one. I hate a stinking snake. The devil's a snake. It wasn't long after that I was changing the oil in my car. And I was coming out from underneath my car and between me and the cabinet, there was a snakeskin laying there that long. I liked to kill myself getting off that creeper, jumping over the rail, ignored the steps. I was like Superman running across that plane. And I went in the house and I told my son, there's a snake out there. So he went running outside with me and he picked it up and he said, Dad, there ain't nothing to worry about. It's just a skin. I said, hey, dummy, let me tell you something. Where there's a skin, there's a snake. You got that right? So I decided I was going to find out why snakes do that anyway. Talk about being honest. Did you know what a snake eats? And I didn't know this. When a snake eats, it's natural to want to grow. Anything that eats grows, right? But the problem is snake skin does not grow. They shed four times a year. So brother Lyle, what happens is the inside says you need to grow. But the flesh says you can't. Now the snake has a problem. He don't have arms or legs. So he can't stand up and just unzip his skin and step out of it. So he gets miserable. Because something inside says grow, but his flesh says, I don't want you to grow. That's how the Christian walk is. When you get born again and you get Christ in you, the hope of glory, something inside of you always wants to grow, but your flesh says, I don't. Y'all with me, right? So the snake is miserable because he wants to grow inside, but he can't grow outside. So he's got to get rid of the flesh. But the problem is, he has no arms or legs to get rid of it. You know what a snake does to get rid of its skin? It goes to the edge of a sharp rock and starts beating its head against the rock. Because what the snake can't do for itself, the rock will do it for him. And by the way, it's a painful process. The snake ain't shouting when he's beating his head against the rock. You don't believe it? Try beating your head against the rock sometime. Some of you look like you've already beat your head against the rock. And what he does, he starts beating his head against the rock, and what he's saying to the rock is, I want to grow, but I can't. My flesh won't let me. But I believe that if I lean on you, and trust you, and stay close to you, you can deliver me from the flesh that don't want me to grow. And he starts beating his head again. And you know the first place his skin lets go? His mouth. His mouth. I could preach, but you wouldn't come back tomorrow night if I said what I wanted to right now. You wouldn't come. You'd hitchhike home. You wouldn't even get in your car if I told you what I wanted to say right there. The first sign of Christian maturity is you learn how to control your mouth. And when it breaks away from his mouth, the air starts sliding in on both sides of his mouth. As he works his body and keeps beating it against the rock all the way down, air gets between him and that skin. And after a while, that flesh that says, you're not growing, you're not going anywhere, because he faithfully stayed up against that rock, that skin lets go of him and that snake goes out and goes to the next level of growth. because he allowed the rock to do for him what he could not do. See, every time you see a skin, that is a snake saying, I have reached another level of maturity. I'm going to another level of development. Now spiritually speaking, when's the last time God saw some of your flesh on an altar? When's the last time you let God deliver you from something that you didn't have the power to deliver yourself from? When's the last time you laid your addiction down? When's the last time you got rid of pornography? When's the last time you got rid of music that didn't please God? When's the last time you got rid of your filthy communications? When's the last time you got rid of some dress things that doesn't please God? You see, that's how you have revival. It's not a bunch of hooping and hollering and shouting. They will come later on. But we've got to get down to business. You've got to get humble with God. You've got to get honest with God. And say, there's something in my life, I can't handle it. But I'm going to give it to you. Because when you deliver me, I'm going to be bigger and better than I've ever been for the glory of God. All you have to do is get honest. Number three, and I'm done. All you have to do is get hungry. You've got to get hungry for a revival before you have it. I was in a church that ran about 60 people. And I went down there and started on a Sunday morning. Brother Cook, I knew Sunday morning, I was in an unusual place. The power of God fell in that place. Brother, in just two weeks, we grew out of every building in that community. In four weeks, we grew out of the civic center that they had in that community. People were coming from everywhere, driving hours away to get saved. It wasn't long until there was no place to put the people, and we rented a big spot of property, and I put up a tent that seated 1,500 people. We started with 60, I said. Over 1,800 people got saved in that revival meeting. 18 churches had to build new buildings or add on to their auditoriums because they couldn't seat all the new converts that were coming into their buildings. People were getting saved everywhere. They were coming from miles away, getting saved on the side of the road. I've never been in nothing like it. And so a preacher called me. I stayed there 14 weeks. And a preacher called me and said, brother kid, what's the key antidote? How did this happen? I said, I don't know. I said, I just come in preaching and this thing took off. I really, I don't know how it happened. I wish I did know how it happened. Later that evening, I was talking to one of the pastors and I told him about that conversation. He said, brother kid, I didn't want to tell you and he'll get mad when I do tell you, but I'm going to tell you why this happened. He said, six months before you came, One of them old silver-haired deacons came to me and said, I'm tired of just church. I'm tired of nobody getting saved, nobody excited about Jesus, no power of the Holy Ghost and anointing in our church. I'm tired. And preacher, here's what I'm going to do. Every day of my life, We've turned our baptistry into a storage shed. It had been so long since anybody had been saved or baptized. He said, I'm pulling all the junk out of the baptistry. I'm clearing out the bugs and the mold. And he said, every day of my life, I'm coming down to this church by myself and I'm laying in that baptistry on my belly. And I'm not quitting until I die. or God sends revival to this ungodly town. Are you listening to me, ladies and gentlemen? It wasn't the preaching of Phil Kidd. It wasn't the groups they were bringing in to sing. It wasn't my charisma. It wasn't the advertisement. You know how it started? It started with just one in the wee hours of the night, one little lowly silver-haired deacon that didn't even want anybody to know that he was doing it, was crawling in a baptistry for six solid months. Oh, what kind of revival we could have If people would get hungry for God and say, give me revival or give me death, give me something. I've seen God move in a supernatural way. I was preaching down in Mississippi one night and revival broke out and I'd been there my third week. And on a Monday morning, the preacher come over and knocked on my bus door and said, one of the men that owns a factory here in the community wants to talk to you. I said, all right, so I went over and went in the pastor's office. I said, yes sir, can I help you? And he gave me his name. He said, are you the wild man holding revival up there at that church? He said, I heard you throw offering plates and cuss people out and tell them not to come back. I said, yes sir, that's me. He said, look, you've tore my company up and I don't appreciate it. He owned a big business, huge business. I said, man, I don't even know you. What you running your mouth about? I ain't never been in your business. I ain't never met you. He said, I don't know what's going on in that church. But he said, we can't even make my products because so many people are crying and under conviction and afraid they're going to go to hell. We shut down all my assembly lines. You understand? I can't make no money while you're holding revival down there. I said, well, what do you want me to do about it? He said, I want you to come down here. I'm going to shut this whole business down. I'm going to stuff 300 people inside a big room there, a cafeteria. And he said, I want you to take your Bible and whatever you're saying down there, I want you to say down here. And he went into that business and 300 people sat in there weeping and crying. And a man shut the business down, gave them an hour's pay off. And I opened up my King James Bible and preached Jesus unto that crowd. And 72 adults came forward that day and said, I'm not working another day. I'm not going home until I know the Jesus of that Bible. And 72 of them got saved. Oh, I'm telling you, God can do it again. We don't have to reach back into time and think about the days of old. God is a God that can do it again. I'm out of time and I want a cigarette, so let me close with this. Let me close with this. Dr. Orr was a professor at Wheaton College up north. And Dr. Orr decided to take a handful of preacher boys and go back over to England where John Wesley lived. John and Charles Wesley started the Methodist Church here in America. Profound revivals broke out under John. And Dr. Orr took a busload of them boys and flew over to England and went to John Wesley's old house. So they went into the kitchen and said, all them young preacher boys fired up. They went into the kitchen and said, this is where John Wesley ate every day. They went into the living room and they said, this is where John Wesley relaxed. They went into the great library and they said, this is where he writes his songs and writes his books. Many of his songs are in our songbook now. And they went upstairs, Brother Hunt, And they went into the room to the right of the staircase, and when they walked in, there was a medium-sized bed there. And Dr. Orr said to these young preacher boys, this was John Wesley's bed, and this is the bed he died on. When John Wesley took his last breath, this is where it happened, right here on this bed. A spirit of solitude filled the bedroom and everybody just gathered around the bed and thought about this great man that God had used in his day. While they gathered around, one of the young preachers said, what is that anyway? And Dr. Orr said, when John Wesley would get up in the morning, he'd slide out of his bed even when he was sick. And that's where his knees would hit the rug. And a solid wool rug was wore out all the way through to the wood floor. where his knees, day after day after day, he spent hours with God. Dr. Orr said, we have to go now, let's go get on the bus. I'm talking about getting hungry. They all got on the bus and the bus driver looked at Dr. Orr as he was getting on and said, sir, I don't know what's happened, but we're one preacher short. He said, I don't know where he could have went. And he went through the house and went through the kitchen. He wasn't there. The living room, he wasn't there. The library, he wasn't there. And he went upstairs and he turned the corner and he looked in the bedroom. And there's a little old skinny preacher boy that had put his knees where John Wesley's had always been. Tears had done flowed down his face and covered the front of his shirt. And as Dr. Orr went to approach him to tell him that they had to leave, he heard the young boy whisper, do it again, Lord. Please do it again." Dr. Orr tapped him on the shoulder and looked up, and his face and shirt was wet with tears. And Dr. Orr says, I appreciate your hunger, son, but we've got to go. They walked down the stairs together, and they were getting up on the bus, and Dr. Orr grabbed his coat and said, By the way, son, what's your name? And he turned around and said, Billy Graham, sir. I'm Billy Graham. If God can do it for John Wesley, because he got hungry, If God can set Billy Graham in a stadium with 79,000 people and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, He's the same God that can do it for you and me. If we'll get humble, if we'll get honest, if we'll get hungry, I believe God can do exceedingly abundantly above anything that we're able to ask or think. That is what the Bible says. So I'm wondering while we stand to our feet right now, everybody stand up, I'm done. I want to ask you a question. Is there one here tonight?