NO SURVIVAL WITHOUT REVIVAL

I told you a few months ago that our church could not survive without a revival. That was not an exaggeration at all. A few weeks after I said that, Waldrip and Kreighton were used by Satan to divide our church in two groups, neither of which can survive by themselves, in my opinion. So what I said to you a few months ago is absolutely true. Without revival our church is finished. Please remember I’m the only one you know who has actually seen a revival in a church. You’ve never seen one. Neither has Waldrip, neither has Kreighton.

The case of our church is so serious now that only radical surgery can save it.

In the first place, we must think of revival in terms of a personal revival. Revival must happen to one person at a time, not to begin with the whole church. As our chorus says,

“Lord, send a revival,
And let it begin in me.”

The fact is that many of our leaders were not converted, including Kreighton, Song, Griffith and so forth. They must ask Dr. Cagan to give them a copy of the book called, “The Almost Christian Discovered” by Matthew Mead, with a forward written by John MacArthur. They must read this little book until they are convinced that they’ve never been converted. Then these men must go to Dr. Cagan and me and have us lead them to Christ. Without this kind of transparency there is no hope for our church. None. That is the first thing I have to say.

Secondly, here are several items to be followed by others if our church is to be saved by genuine revival (which nobody but me has seen). If any of those men read Matthew Mead and did what he said, there would probably be a great revival.

1. Get thoroughly dissatisfied with yourself. A contented soul is a stagnant soul.

2. Be willing to experience a sweeping transformation of your life. Timid experimenters will fail before they start. You must throw your whole soul into a desire for God. The Bible says, “The kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it” (Matthew 11:12).

3. It is a mistake to think of revival as a sort of magical experience, or to expect God’s help to come apart from conditions known and met. There are plainly marked paths which lead straight to revival. Walk in them! To desire revival and yet at the same time neglect prayer and devotion is to wish one way and walk another.

4. And this is the key for most of you. Do a thorough job of repenting. Don’t hurry to get it over with. Quick repentance gives shallow spiritual experience and lack of certainty. Until you allow the consciousness of sin to wound you, you will never develop a fear of evil. Your terrible habit of following sin keeps you in your half dead condition.

5. Make restitution. Pay back what you have wrongly taken and done.

6. Bring your life into accord with the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount. An honest man with an open Bible and a pencil will find what is wrong with him very quickly. But if he is a self-deceived man, he’ll never figure it out. Dr. A. W. Tozer said, “Some see man in the worst condition possible. Because he is self-deceived, he will never see what a fraud he is. Man is helpless because he is self-deceived and will never discover that he is a fraud.”

7. Turn off your television set. We are talking about the life and death of the church. There is no time for television.

8. Narrow your interests and God will enlarge your heart. Your heart will become larger when you throw open the doors to Christ and close them against the world and sin.

9. Have faith in God. Have faith that He can answer you.

If you follow these suggestions you will most surely experience revival in your own heart, and who can tell how far it will take you.

I don’t believe any American soul will do this. Americans are too proud to listen to somebody like A. W. Tozer, who gave all those comments in one of his books. Simply remember that Dr. Tozer served for 31 years in the same church in Chicago without ever having a split and having many revivals, which no other church in the area had, and which you will not have if you don’t obey his words. The Bible says,

“The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead” (Proverbs 21:16; p. 687 Scofield).

I quote that verse knowing that there are some of you who will be cast into outer darkness and burn in Hell forever if you don’t listen to and obey Dr. Tozer’s nine points given above.

ADDENDUM

1. Get a copy, read it, and obey what they say: Miss Marie Monsen’s books. Get a copy of each and obey what they say: Miss Marie Monsen’s “A Present Help” and “The Awakening.” The second book gives you the best picture of revival that I have ever read anywhere. It is what I saw when the First Chinese Baptist Church went from about 100 members to 1800 in Sunday School. This is the real thing.

2. Do not read anything else except Miss Monsen’s book, Matthew Mead’s book and this sermon. Your mind is already too cluttered up with religious things. Don’t add more.

3. Go to Dr. Cagan about these matters as quickly as possible. Dr. Cagan is the only man that can help you.

4. Don’t counsel with anybody in the church (or “leader” in the church) except Dr. Cagan. Dr. Cagan is the only man in the whole church (in either group) who can help you at all. Nobody else can. This whole church split has come by lost people counseling each other and carnal people telling each other what to do. Do not talk to anybody except Dr. Cagan. If you don’t listen to him, you will be confused and revival will not come.

You have not listened to my messages so far, and it has resulted in a split church that will dwindle and die. You may feel good about it now, but later you will see how foolish you were. Now is the time for you to listen to my sermon as though you’d never heard one before. Now is the time for you to listen to and obey this sermon. It’s already very late. The more you put off listening to and obeying a sermon like this, the more likely you are to go to outer darkness when you die.

I’m the only person who has actually been in a revival that saved a church. Nobody you know has ever seen that, so it’s no use talking to them. They can only add confusion, as they already have. They can only add more confusion!

There can be no survival without revival. John Waldrip has never seen a revival, and neither has Kreighton or anybody else in his “church.”

cc: John MacArthur, Kreighton and Waldrip, plus world-wide distribution.

The above message was adapted from two sermons by Dr. A. W. Tozer.

“Lord, send a revival,
And let it begin in me.”