i thought i would come to the cafe a little prevenient this evening, considering it’s getting dark earlier, i wanted to enjoy the fading light of the day with all the colors of the setting sun.

i’m Social Porter and welcome to Outposts.

Revival is messy! Some folks run to it, others run away. Some stand in the midst and don’t see it, as if their eyes have misted over and they’ve fallen into a dream. Some folks immediately go into emotional overload and just go home, like the pastor upon who’s church the Holy Spirit visited, and it all contradicted so many of his pet doctrines he just clicked out… rounded up his family and left all the people to it telling them to turn out the lights and lock up when they were done. Yes, that really happened.

Then, yes, then, there are the leaders who feel they must control it all, still trying to orchestrate things, managing the time schedule, don’t do or say anything which challenges our mission statement or by laws, keep everyone within the rules, especially the women…no kidding, it happens… sort of like asking the worship team to go up and do something spontaneous for a just a few minutes. Hmmmm….that would be scripted spontaneity… how do you do that? It’s in the same absurd vain as “a suggested required donation”…  it’s an oxymoron, meaning they are contradictory terms appearing in conjunction.

There’s a lot of material out there, really good material, addressing the issue of the coming outpouring of the Lord, so this is nothing new to hear about. Even so, it is always worth talking about. Why? Because when it happens in your heart, in your house, in your church, in your town, all that great reading material will be at home on the night stand, you’ll be the one in the middle of it all, and it will be unique to you and yours, specifically where you are at the time, and the predictable outcome and calculatable results won’t be as were expected. The idea is to flow with the Spirit in the season, not get lost in a well-meaning revival model some very smart person mapped out.

When revival blossoms like fragrant, well-watered flowers, and then turns into a raging, Holy Ghost wild fire, there is no room for the 3P’s… power, position, and prestige… you know, pride and arrogance will cause us to slit our eyes to only see what we want, will narrow our ears to only hear what we want, and will turn the song in our mouth into the braying of a donkey. Our self-importance and image management programs will be like a headstone tied around our neck, dragging us down to the depths of the ocean floor. God requires us to come in by the narrow gate in Luke 13:24, but pride and arrogance, self-important title lovers will be too big to get through. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines….position yourselves for what God is about to do. Prayer is not about pulling God down, but putting ourselves in position for what He’s about to do.

When the Lord makes His move, it will truly be… beyond all our predictions and expectations. He will exceed our ideas of who should be in charge, who is anointed, how and where it will happen. We can’t “make” it happen, nor can we extract revival from God to happen before He is ready… but, we certainly can prepare by positioning ourselves, physically, emotionally, and spiritually… prayer is the starting place, as usual, and everything else builds from there.

Proverbs 14:4, “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.” If the barn is clean, there’s not much going on.

i don’t know it, but i seriously doubt the next outpouring of the Lord will be gotten by following the guide lines of an old paradigm or a nifty church model which worked once upon a time. In Joshua 6 they marched around Jericho seven times and the seventh time all the people shouted with a great shout and the walls fell down. Never again has taking a city happened that way.

In 1Samuel 17 David defeated the champion of the Philistines with a rock and a sling. 1 Samuel 17:49-50, “And David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the ground. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him. There was no sword in the hand of David.”

What? NO SWORD? Scripture specifically points this out in nine little words making an incredible point. Yep, No SWORD! Ha! He threw a rock at the guy, the rock made its mark, and the battle was all over except the crying from the enemy.

It had never happened that way before. There are no reports of anyone ever defeating an enemy with a sling and a stone again. Sure, i reckon it’s possible there may have cropped up training centers for future rock slingers, and there may have been people selling slings and some “special giant killer” stones as if they were at a carnival somewhere, but never was it reported that God took out an enemy the same way… ever again.

The method with which revival is arrived at is by following God’s lead. In Acts 2the Holy Spirit came while believers were praying in an upper room… after that i bet there were people who decided that in order for all that wonderment to happen again, they had to find an upper room somewhere, fast and pray, all because some bright person figured that’s how revival happens. (BUZZER)

Another time in June of 1800 at the Red River Meeting House, a small rural Presbyterian congregation was holding a church service which began as a Scottish sacrament service… the communion service started on a Thursday, which was a day of fasting, Friday as a day to ask questions and have discussions, Saturday was preparation day, Sunday they met and had communion, and Monday was a day of giving thanks. But in the middle of it all there began amazing Holy Spirit manifestations with increasing intensity and burning passion for the Lord. The congregants gathered at the church, other sat nearby campsites for singing, worship, and prayer in the morning… there were reports that many continued on for three days and nights, weeping, singing loudly, repenting, and praising God… the passion and zeal would seem to die down and suddenly a shout would come out of the camp and the fire would rise again, continuing for hours and days… as God released one group to rest, He brought in others to carry on, day and night… that is extreme, even in my opinion. It was all so intense it spread from Branch County Kentucky to the surrounding Cumberland region into Tennessee, Ohio, and Western North Carolina. The Holy Ghost fire lasted for almost a year and included other denominations like the Methodists, Quakers and even some stiff Presbyterian leadership. People came from great distances to be a part of what God was doing. One newspaper reporter wrote, as he watched the crowds from a hill, that as they sang and worshipped tirelessly day and night in the valley below him, he could see the Holy Spirit sweeping over the immense crowd of people saying it looked like wind blowing in waves across fields of wheat. From the Cane River Revival an important innovation of continuous church services emerged which they called camp meetings. The revival came to a close around May of 1801.

i grew up in the southeast Bible belt, and even to this day, there are many preachers who still put up a tent and hold camp meetings. Of course, the pattern of camp ground meetings the Lord used in 1800 isn’t how He did it in other revivals. The Scottish sacrament service was tradition which had carried over from Europe, but what the Lord did was unique to the necessities and identities of the people in the culture of the area. If we try to work up revival based on what happened before, what once was the method of connecting with God will become the very method of our hindrance, if we don’t transition to the new, we will be constrained by the old.

Praying and pursuing the Lord for breakthrough and revival is necessary and sounds pretty spiritual and lofty, but honestly, it isn’t exactly a glamorous adventure. It’s bigger than that, there’s more to it than just thinking someone will take a picture of you walking on the water and posting it on Instagram somewhere. In the midst of God’s moving many will feel broken and messy… of course we all want to feel bold, courageous and fearless, but instead what we’ve really got is just how much we desperately needed Jesus every step of the way… some thing just feels right about that. The Lord will get all up in people’s lives. Right now, we may think, Praise God! This is what we came for. But when you’re all laid out on the floor, weeping, broken, and your nose is running in puddles on the floor, it’s not the predictable scene many previously imagined, which was hands raised in the air, everything nice and neatly folded. We live in a world full of broken people in desperate need of a Savior. There will be people showing up in all their brokenness, chaos and all, crying out for Jesus. i can tell you from experience, you may have your composure at the back of the room, but the more intense God’s presence becomes, the less important how you look and act will be.

i think i’m realizing that the world wants us to look at pain, disappointment, loss and injustice as defeat, and it’s not… it’s the reality of life and the truth of ourselves.

In the year 2000, i had an encounter with the Lord that lasted almost a month, with the first 2 weeks being so extreme i can’t hardly talk about it, even now, without being reduced to a puddle. i was in the middle of remodeling a really old house…there was stuff i simply HAD to get done. i hadn’t been doing anything too out of the ordinary for me. It is normal for me to pray in the morning and at night, it is normal for me to fast sometimes, and it is normal for me to read my Bible and study every opportunity i’ve got. So it’s not like i was intentionally pressing in to get something from God. One morning in April about 10am i had just laid some plywood underlayment and while i was down on the floor, i had the thought, “Hey, while you’re down here on your knees, why don’t you pray for a while?” Seemed reasonable, so i did.

Suddenly, the room filled with the presence of the Lord….there was pressure, a wonderful pressing in upon me to the point i was sobbing, not just crying but sobbing…it felt like water pressing through a sponge. Every time i’d try and squeeze the tears out of my eyes so i could see, involuntarily bowed down before Him and the water from my face poured even more… He pressed so close and hard in upon me i couldn’t talk, worship, praise or make any sounds other than sobbing. The one bit of will i had was that i was determined to NOT beg Him to stop but for the Lord to pour all He would pour on me. i was pushed to all my limits, everything in me was pegging the meter. This went on all day and into the night. My family thought i was crazy but it was God, God was in the house and i couldn’t help but be overwhelmed…even my overwhelmed was overwhelmed. A week went by, i couldn’t hardly drive a nail for weeping joy. i profusely and urgently wrote praise and worship, page after page… i even wrote in tongues (it doesn’t matter if you don’t believe it, well, there it is. And it’s not something i contrived or dreamed up. There it is, so, what would you do? Just because someone doesn’t believe God does stuff like that doesn’t mean he doesn’t do those things just because they don’t believe it. It only means, they don’t believe it, and that is all), can you believe that? i made up a written language and wrote in tongues, as totally bizarre as that sounds, all because i could only sob. The world around me was in colors i’d never seen, everything vibrated, visibly vibrated according to it’s resonant frequency… i heard every detail from the breathing of the trees to the spider building a web… i heard the brilliance of all His hand had made. There were dreams… oh my gosh, the dreams… there were God dreams and i’d wake up praying and sobbing. i didn’t wake up and then get blown away, i woke up blown away. This all went on for 2 weeks, day and night. By week three no one would hardly speak to me, they just stared and i knew i was worrying them and driving them crazy. i openly wept at the lumber store, at church, in the feed and seed store… i couldn’t help it due to the press of the incredible presence of the Lord. By week 4 His overwhelming presence was beginning to fade and i began to find my voice, singing praise and worship loud and long, all day long. At the end of the 4th week, i could converse with people without sobbing. It was the Lord and i knew it. Something had been planted in me and i would never be the same.

You’ll not leave here as you came in Jesus Name. Bound, demented, depressed, sick or lame. For the Holy Ghost of Acts is still the same… you’ll not leave here as you came in Jesus Name.

Many years after my encounter with the Lord, a fellow asked me why i didn’t fast and pray to get back to that place of living in the press of His presence. You know, i did try, but it was like trying to light a lighter that was just out of butane…it would spark with a weak flame for a moment and then go out, eventually my efforts only drew a spark, and then it wouldn’t even spark anymore.

i want you to know, when God is in the house and it’s time for revival, no one has to tell you God is in the house. You can’t make it happen, you can’t beat the drums enough to make Him come down. God arrives when He arrives, never early, never late, but always right on time.

There are three rains in Joel 2:23, “Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.”

There are four rains mentioned there, two are spelled the same but the other two are spelled differently, so there are three different rains which the Lord mentions. Now that’s a discussion for another time, but the point is HE sends the rain, we position ourselves to receive the rain, but we don’t go get the rain nor can we squeeze it out of His hand… He gives it, we receive it.

i went to a major meeting of a well-known international evangelist and speaker many years ago. They beat the drums and played the music for three hours straight… the people were worked up into a lather. Then a man in the employ of the evangelist, right when it seemed the people were at a peak frenzy, got up and started yelling that “God is in the house! GOD is in the house!” Every time he said, “God is in the house!” the people went crazy. Then he started yelling, “Who wants to live under an open Heaven? Who will be the first to give $1000?” i was exasperated with the exploitation of the peoples hot emotion and high atmosphere. After 10 minutes of yelling “God is in the house!” i thought to myself, “You know, if God was really in the house in the sense he means “God is in the house”, he probably wouldn’t have to tell us. We would all more than likely be on the floor, under chairs, weeping, sobbing, repenting, and call out for mercy. i doubt we would need to be told God was in the house though, because when He’s in the house, oh baby, let me tell you, you’ll know it is the Lord and you best be getting low!”

i’ll say it again, no one will have to tell you the Lord is present, we can’t drive Him off for God isn’t as brittle as we might imagine, nor can we make Him stay longer than He’ll stay because the Lord doesn’t manipulate and isn’t subject to coercion, nor is He for sale and is persuaded by someone waving money at Him.

The Lord pours out when He pours out, sometimes at the seemingly smallest things. For example, in 1904, while churches were packed for prayer, during a prayer meeting for young people, Pastor Joseph Jenkins asked for testimonies. A young girl named Florrie Evans, who had only been a believer a few days, rose and with a trembling voice said simply, “I love Jesus with all my heart.” Suddenly, the other young people’s hearts were melted. A powerful spiritual awakening called the Welsh Revival that brought 100,000 people to Christ was under way. The London Times pointed out that entire congregations were on their knees in fervent prayer and “for the first time there was not a single case of drunkenness at the Swansea Petty Sessions.    At the same time in another location, David Lloyd-George, who later became the British Prime Minister, was impressed as a young girl prayed in the presence of 2,000 people. He said, in one town, the tavern sold only 9 cents worth of drinks on Saturday night!

The whole population had been suddenly stirred by a common impulse… Jesus had become the overwhelming, absorbing interest of their lives. People gathered at crowded services for six and eight hours and more at a time. Political meetings were canceled, football games were postponed…even quarrels between trade-union workmen and non-unionists were resolved. The Salvation Army set apart January 19th for a day of confession, humbling themselves, and prayer throughout four countries… England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Did you get that? Throughout four countries! All day prayer meetings were held in many of the principal cities of the British Isles, according to the London Times. The meeting was marked by “fervent prayer and anyone who felt called upon to pray.” The Holy Spirit fires of spiritual revival and moral recovery were spreading.
Coal miners crowded into prayer meetings that lasted till 3:00 a.m. and then they washed up, ate breakfast and returned to work. The fire of revival was even taken underground into the long dark coal mines…and the company managers were good with that. In many cities, newspapers reported that many abandoned gambling and their habits of ill repute to the point that gambling and prostitution businesses closed down for lack of patronage.

Employers noticed a great improvement in the work produced by their employees. A week of united prayer meetings in an English town called Nuneaton led to a “glorious revival”. The Prince’s Theatre was packed each Sunday night after church with 1500 praying believers and many unsaved seekers….the meetings often went on into the night and into the next day. In the Bedfordshire villages, whole nights devoted to prayer prepared for powerful evangelism.

Long lines of people lined up to be baptized, old and young alike. This was more than just a single church having an evening of high emotion and hot atmosphere, more than just banging on drums and playing music wishing things would change…it was happening right in front of them, and each person was in the thick of it. The Welsh Revivals aren’t even the biggest and best known. When the Lord shows up, everything and everyone bows down and declares Him as God.

That is just a glimpse of what it looks like when the Holy Spirit pours out upon us and there springs forth revival in our midst. Probably the largest current revival going on today is in China with about 30,000 people coming to Christ every day.

When the Christ of God came, when Jesus walked the streets, speaking the word of the Lord, healing the sick and lame, raising the dead, and just straight out challenged the religious regime of the day, i think it was the biggest revival ever started. There were always crowds, lots of people, lots of decisions, lots of debating over who He was. It was a jumble as people were pressed in their hearts to decide the most important decision of their lives. There were times when He healed them all, and other times scripture records He only healed one that we know of. The Son of God was the talk of everywhere and was the overwhelming impulse of people’s lives. i can’t think of anyone anywhere more important to spend my time with and to dream about.

The closer the Lord gets to all things, the more all things become like Him. Our God is a consuming fire and draws all things to Himself. Let us pursue the Lord for revival, the breakout of the Holy Spirit for ourselves and our nation. Think about it.

           Oswald Chambers wrote: “We are nowhere told to preach salvation or sanctification or divine healing; we are told to lift up Jesus who is the Redeemer, and He will produce His redemptive results in the souls of men. If I preach only the effects of the redemption, describe in persuasive speech what God has done for me, nothing will happen. It is only when I am humble enough and stupid enough to preach the Cross that the miracle of God takes place.”

Where then do we start with all this? i think Oswald Chambers hit the nail on the head. When we lift up Jesus… there is the starting place. John 12:32, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

All out pouring of the Holy Spirit are preceded by prayer in one form or another. Maybe it’s just a few consistently gathering in a home with the burden of prayer, and then the Lord inspires others to do the same at church, but little by little, the transition to being in position for revival is achieved. Another facet of revival seems to be repentance and the deep knowledge of the need for Jesus by anyone and everyone in the flow of His presence, believer or not.

All in all, it is about Jesus, declaring Jesus, acknowledging Jesus who is our hope and our strength, our resurrected savior who died and rose again for our sins. i do believe it’s safe to say, revival begins on our knees.

i’m Social Porter and this has been Outposts.

The Lord is preparing us for a great outpouring as we’ve never experienced. Position yourself by prayer, knowing who He is and understanding His heart. What will you do on your day of visitation. i don’t know about you, but i don’t want just a visitation, i want a habitation. Even so, come Lord Jesus. Amen.