Rick Flanders: Thank you. And now let’s find the book of John. Can we all turn to the gospel according to John?

And we’ll find chapter 7. John chapter 7. And going from the first verse down all the way to the 37th verse.

Follow me as I read starting with verse 37. John 7, 37. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.

He that believeth on me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.

Now the book of John is a unique section of scripture. We are told in chapter 20 the purpose of the gospel according to John. It says, these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing he might have life in his name.

Now, the theme of the book of John is life. Now, sometimes I have told people, read the book of John if you’re in search of God. It actually says in chapter 20 that the stories selected and written in the book of John are written to persuade you that what Jesus claimed for himself was true.

I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger. He that believeth on me shall never thirst.

I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man cometh unto the Father but by me. And the book of John was actually written to persuade us that those things are true and that believing you might have life in his name and so many times I’ve said that you might have a new life in his name or that you might have everlasting life in his name. But you know what?

For all those years of reading the book of John, I missed the point. In John chapter 1, speaking of Jesus Christ, coming to earth on his rescue mission, it says, In him was life. And the life was the light of man.

Follow the book of John as if you had never read it before. You’ll discover, as I did, that the term eternal life, everlasting life, is not even mentioned until chapter 3. We know the verse.

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And the verses before said eternal life. Now you keep reading the book of John as if you had never read it before.

And you come to realize that the adjective eternal or everlasting is not so much about the quantity of the life as it is about the quality of the life. Now, we will have everlasting life. Does that mean we live forever?

Well, it’s not so much about how long or about the quantity of the life. It’s about the quality of the life. Because in chapter 17, Jesus says, this is life eternal.

That they might know thee, the true and living God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Yeah, now talking on quantity, you know the devil lives forever in the lake of fire. But nowhere is the existence of the devil or of the damned, even though it lasts forever, it is never called life.

It’s eternal death. We’re reading about something different here. Also, it’s not something you get when you die.

it’s something that you get when you believe on Jesus Christ keep reading the book of John it’s quite amazing chapter 6 Jesus says that he not only gave his life for the world he gave his life to the world in chapter 4 he meets this woman at a well he says to her if thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that sayeth to thee, give me to drink. Thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

So she has questions, what is this living water? And he says, if you come back to the well tomorrow and take a drink, or if you take a drink today, you will thirst again. But anyone who takes a drink of the water that I shall give him, he will never thirst again.

but in him shall there be a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The life we got when we got saved was the life of Jesus. And the quality of that life is that it is eternal.

Now she receives a well inside that will meet her every need. Then we come down to chapter 7, a very important chapter in the gospel according to John. And in this chapter we find that on the last day of the feast, Jesus again says that if you’re thirsty, come to me and drink.

But then he says this, he that believeth on me, as the scripture has said, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Then it says this talk about water and a well and rivers refers to the Holy Spirit that the Christians had not received and would receive on the day of Pentecost. Stay with me just a moment.

In John 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, the night before he died, Jesus describes and instructs, describes to his followers what life will be like after he goes away. A whole lot of it has to do with the Holy Spirit, and he says it this way. If you love me, keep my commandments.

and I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it knoweth him not and then it says but ye know him and he is with you and he shall be in you ye know him. You know the Holy Spirit.

Friends, it’s going to be very important coming out as we are the day before the end of the conference that we know that we know the Holy Spirit. Dear Lord, this is so simple tonight. Help the preacher to keep it simple.

May it be that every believer in Jesus Christ will understand the treasure they have within. Help us, Lord, to know him as comforter. Help us, Lord, to know him as guide and in every other way he came to be with us.

Let tonight’s sermon be important not only to us, but to this dark world. Meet with us and teach us tonight, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Now we’re told at the beginning of chapter 7 that Jesus was going to the Feast of Tabernacles, one of the important festival seasons in the Jewish calendar. The chapter is especially important to the purpose of the book. The book is about proving that Jesus is who he claimed to be.

At this Feast of the Tabernacles, there’s a controversy in Jerusalem over him. Who is he? How dare he make these claims?

Why are the leaders so much against him? And really someone reading the book of John, trying to seek the truth about Jesus Christ, will find chapter 7 very important in making his decision. Without a question, that’s true.

But now he comes on the last day, and he quotes from the Song of Solomon. This is awful interesting to me. He says, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Now, it’s interesting to me because some years ago, reading a commentary on the Song of Solomon, I read that the New Testament never quotes the Song of Solomon. Oh, yes, right here. Let me read it to you.

It’s in chapter 4, if you want to look it up, verse 12. And you remember now the king is going to be married to his love. And it says this, A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse.

That’s kind of a phrase in the Song of Solomon. My sister, my spouse. A spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits, camphir with spikenard, spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes with all the chief spices. Now look at verse 15. A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from the desert.

That’s who his love was to the king. And now we’re told that the fulfillment will be for believers in Jesus Christ who will drink the living waters. Now let’s see what the book of John is saying about that.

Number one, if you don’t know the Holy Ghost, you don’t know anything about the Christian life. Yeah, it says here, out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water. And this is referring to the Holy Ghost, which believers had not yet received.

And did you know, you don’t know anything about the Christian life if you don’t know anything about the Holy Ghost. Because the Christian life has everything to do with the Holy Spirit. Now I was in a church somewhere and somebody took me inside and said, I like your preaching, Brother Flanders, and I appreciate you, but I’ve got a question for you I want to ask you privately.

He said, whenever I hear you preach, just about every time you mention the Holy Ghost, I thought Baptists were not supposed to talk about that. Now I gave him several answers to that very, very insightful question. He said, why do you talk about the Holy Ghost?

But my first answer was this. I’m trying to make up for lost time. 100 years ago, a system of false doctrine came across the world called Pentecostalism.

I’m not attacking Pentecostals. There are many sincere good Christians in the Pentecostal movement. But the system is totally false doctrine and largely false doctrine about the Holy Spirit.

But here’s what happened. The devil won this one. It rose up in the early 1900s.

Some sincere people were sent down dead-end streets and deceived and gotten off the track of revival using revival terminology that they co-opted. And many other things were done to people who could have really had an impact on the world for Christ. But on the other hand, Bible-oriented people who could see the error in Pentecostalism were motivated just to back off and avoid this subject altogether.

Did you know you don’t really meet the challenge of false doctrine by avoiding this subject? You meet the challenge of false doctrine by teaching the truth, which fundamentalists and Baptists all knew 100 years ago. A.J.

Gordon’s great book, The Ministry of the Spirit, he was a Baptist, Clarendon Street Baptist Church, Boston, Massachusetts, one of the most phenomenal men of God you could ever read about. he taught about the Holy Spirit F. B.

Meyer W. B. Riley read his book called Perennial Revival R.

A. Torrey not a Baptist but a leading fundamentalist I’ll tell you what I recommend anything Torrey writes so much is about the ministry of the Holy Spirit once it was known but we backed off for 100 years Now, why would that be an important problem?

Here’s why The night before Jesus died He spent five chapters explaining to the disciples and to us About the abundant Christian life John 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 Now look at this And three out of five chapters were about the Holy Ghost 14, 15, and 16 In order to ward off Pentecostalism, some well-meaning Baptists and fundamentalists have misinterpreted many verses. One of them is John 16. You may have heard it quoted where it says, when the Spirit comes, he will not speak of himself.

So that leads people to say, never talk about the Holy Ghost. Go back and read the verse. He actually explains it to you right there in that verse and in the context.

What he meant was this. When the Holy Spirit gives the words of Scripture, when he guides us into all truth, he will be not speaking from himself, but from the Son and the Father. That’s exactly what it said.

I heard somebody say, you know, the Holy Spirit is the silent member of the Trinity. Now, I want to be reverent about this. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God.

Father, Son, and Spirit are all three to be worshipped. And we’re to put our faith in Father, Son, and Spirit. There is no difference.

But if we were to kind of get into a debate with someone who would say that, we could actually argue that the Holy Spirit is the least silent of the three. Because he inspired the scripture. Every word of 66 books given by the Holy Ghost, maybe the least silent, shows how far off we got.

You know, to be carnally minded is death. But to be spiritually minded, and in the context of Romans 8, that’s talking about the Holy Spirit is life and peace. And I’m going to tell you something.

When we backed off from the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, it made us dead. And that’s why our churches are so dead. And they’re trying to liven up the churches with carnal music, which means they’re imposing death on the congregation.

Did you know death can be exciting? But it’s not life. And the Holy Spirit is the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

He is our comforter. The word comforter means helper. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments, and I’m going to give you all the help you need.

His name will be the Holy Spirit, and we know how important he is. Read the New Testament. How many of you folks are Christians and you’ve ever read any of the New Testament before?

Okay. Didn’t you notice that the Christian life after the day of Pentecost is all to be lived in the power of the Holy Spirit? We can’t do without him.

Now, if you didn’t notice it anywhere else, pay attention to the book of Romans. Okay. Romans 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Well, actually, up through chapter 5, it’s about how Jesus Christ delivered us from the penalty of our sins. Then you get to 6, 7, and 8. That’s how Jesus Christ delivered us from the power of our sins.

where we can actually live above ourselves by faith in him. Now watch. So chapter 6 starts talking about living the Christian life.

Okay. And it says, reckon yourself to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ. Well, reckon yourself to be dead to sin.

Why do we do that? Because we are dead to sin. And we’re alive unto God.

That’s what he did for us when he saved us. Chapter 6 says that I’ve been freed from sin. Chapter 7 says I’ve been freed from the law.

And that’s been done by the cross of Jesus Christ. Okay, now, up through chapter 7, the Holy Spirit has been mentioned twice. Two places, I know.

Then in chapter 8, where he gets into the important and essential role the Holy Spirit has in the Christian life. The Holy Spirit is mentioned in chapter 8 19 times. You know why?

We’re talking about living the Christian life. And in chapter 8, for example, it says he gives us liberty. He gives us leadership.

He gives us assurance. The Spirit beareth witness with my spirit that I am a child of God. He gives us peace.

He helps us to please God. He is also the Spirit that helps us to pray. Go through the New Testament in your mind.

Marriage. In every way, we have to rely on the Holy Ghost. That’s it.

You can’t live the Christian life without the Holy Ghost. And if you know nothing about the Holy Spirit, you know nothing about the Christian life. Number two, there are two distinct aspects of the ministry of the Spirit in the Christian.

Okay, now, we deal with semantics, especially if you’re a pastor. We were glad to be able to ordain several men to the gospel ministry. An ordination council is an interesting place to learn doctrine, especially when we get to this section about the Holy Spirit.

And I’m telling you, semantics, I’m talking about the right words to use about aspects of the ministry of the Spirit will get you into trouble because people disagree with each other a great deal. After years of experience with that, I came to realize this. Listen, the most important thing to be right about having to do with the ministry of the Spirit in the Christian is this.

There are two distinct aspects of it. Number one, the first thing happens when you get saved. Number two, the second thing happens when you yield.

Absolutely. Okay? Ephesians chapter 1 says we were all sealed with the Holy Spirit when we were saved.

When we believed the Holy Spirit came to live inside, he was part of the whole package. And our body became the temple of the Holy Ghost. Ephesians 5 gives a command.

It commands everybody who has been sealed by the Spirit to be filled with the Spirit. Command means I have an obligation. Every sealed with the Spirit person, every saved person, has an obligation to be filled with the Spirit.

And an opportunity to be filled with the Spirit, meaning to get in on his full ministry in my life. Meeting all of my needs. Lifting me up and help me be a good Christian.

Now, you can get old books. There are old books out there. I hope you’ll get them.

Some people are thrown by the changes in semantics. Back in the early 1900s, maybe some would say some great men were not as careful about the semantics. I’m not going to really take sides on this.

But an example would be people like Gordon and Torrey would refer to the baptism of the Spirit in reference to the filling. Nearly all of us think of the baptism of the Spirit today in reference to the sealing. Nearly all of us thinks that every Christian has been baptized in the Holy Spirit, but back 100 years ago, that was not usually the way we use the term baptism.

Now, I’m certainly not going to get into a debate about this now, but I came to realize it isn’t some gaping, huge doctrinal problem. It’s semantics. Now, there is a meaning in the Bible of the term baptized in the Holy Ghost.

We need to know what that is. But what are you saying, Brother Flanders? Basically, the truth is there are two aspects of the ministry of the Spirit and in through a Christian.

Number one is the well. You take a drink. That drink of the living water will instantly become a well in you.

springing up into everlasting life, called in Ephesians, sealed with the Spirit. He called on her to believe in him. The metaphor was, take a drink.

He says, if you do that forever, there will be someone inside you to meet all of your needs. May I say that’s what the woman needed. She was confused and broken and thirsty.

She didn’t just need a promise that when she died, she’d go to heaven and not hell. She needed something right now. And she got it.

And so did I. It was the well, which we identify with Ephesians, the sealing of the Holy Spirit. But then there is the rivers.

The well overflows. The well meets all my needs. Never hunger.

Never thirst. The power I need to live the Christian life, the power I need to overcome my weakness, it’s there. And by faith I access it day by day.

Oh, absolutely essential. But now watch. The well can overflow to meet the needs of others.

Out of your belly, out of your belly, shall flow rivers of living water. others can take a drink. The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise.

Others can drink from the fruit that grows on my branches. It’s the same metaphor. It’s like, thou anointest my head with oil.

My cup runneth over. He set at the table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Now anointest my head with oil.

But the oil not only anoints me. It overflows. That’s it.

Rivers. Now, one of the themes of every year’s Victory Conference is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I think we got it this time.

We learned right away at the first session that the Christian life is 0% me and 100% Jesus. I can’t do it without him. The Christian life is not just hard.

The Christian life is impossible. So I must rely on him. That’s what living by faith is.

Wait on God every moment of every day. What I need, I will only get from him. He’s my source.

But more specifically, doctrinally, it’s the Holy Spirit. See, so the Holy Spirit is inside you to take care of everything. See, you can overcome your sins by the Holy Spirit.

You can be emotionally satisfied by the Holy Spirit. The problem with most of us, either is that we don’t know that, No, but he told us. Or we’ve stopped taking drinks.

Thirsty, no need to be thirsty. He told her, never thirst again. Wow.

But the well is in there not just to satisfy my thirst, but to overflow. So that out of my innermost being flows not a trickle, not a fountain, but not a river. Rivers.

Rivers, he used the singular pronoun, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. So the third point is this. Everyone who has the well should let the rivers flow.

The spirit that gave me assurance bore witness with my spirit that I was a child of God. That’s not emotions, but everybody in this room knows what it means to feel saved. How many of you would say, I don’t really emphasize feelings, but I know what it means to feel saved.

That’s the way we describe it. When the spirit of God showed us from the moment of our conversion that we had a relationship with the Father. Abba!

He’s not a distant deity on a foreign planet. He’s not a theological concept they speak of at church. He is my Father.

Oh. Matter of fact, to be saved is called being born of the Spirit. But there’s more.

Not more of the Spirit. But the next thing is, the well should overflow, and everyone who has the well should let the rivers flow, like they did on the day of Pentecost. Now, I know the day of Pentecost has a very important dispensational meaning.

The Lord Jesus said the Spirit would come, and he did come on the day of Pentecost. But something else happened. They were not only sealed with the Holy Spirit that day.

The Bible says they were filled with the Holy Spirit. That only happens when we yield. Study the passage about Pentecost.

See what they did to be filled with the Spirit. Well, first of all, they agreed with God. The Bible says they were with one accord in one place after 10 days of prayer.

Did you know a lot more happens in a prayer meeting than just praying? They were dealing with their failures. They had been trained for three and a half years by the master himself.

They didn’t do very well. When their training was tested, they didn’t do very well. Matter of fact, the final exam, the night when he was arrested in the garden, it wasn’t just Peter.

They all forsook him and fled. You know, if you looked at that little group of people and said these people are going to take the gospel to the whole world, our response to that would be, I don’t think so. But he said ye shall receive power after that.

The Holy Ghost has come upon you, prayed for ten days. Now they were with one accord in one place. In the book of John chapter 17, it teaches that Christian unity isn’t so much you agreeing with me as it is all of us agreeing with him.

They agreed in purpose. And then when they were filled with the Spirit, they were united in heart. That’s what happened to them.

They came to an agreement. Now that agreement included reaching the world. They came to an agreement with Jesus about his great commission.

They might have said, I don’t know how I could ever do this. I don’t even know where the uttermost part of the earth is. But I want what you want.

I want the news of your salvation taken to every creature of every nation all over the world. I want it to. Came to an agreement.

Did you know the Christian life is far from selfish? If somebody says so far here on Wednesday, I don’t think you would because I’ve heard the same preaching as you. But if you said, I’m sure glad I came, I sure feel better.

Oh, I feel better. Man, I got the feeling, brother. I don’t blame you for feeling better.

You know what? It feels good to be clean. Sure feels better than being dirty.

Confessing our sins, yielding our lives. Did you know it feels good to finally surrender everything to Jesus Christ? But the Christian life isn’t really about me.

Even if our behavior improves, even if our wife notices it, boy, I think God’s doing something. Okay, that’s all really good. But I’m going to tell you something right now.

The most basic thing about the Christian life is self-denial. If you would come after me, Jesus said, deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me.

That’s right. Ephesians 5, we’ve actually heard these verses already, where it tells us to be filled with the Spirit. One of the key verses says, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

A sign that I’m filled with the Spirit is I don’t care about me anymore. And it’s manifested in my home, my marriage, my parents, my kids. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

Because when the Spirit of God makes Christianity work in your life, you become unselfish. And we agree with God that the need of the world is more important than my own personal desires. On the day of Pentecost, they not only came to an agreement with him, they partnered with him.

That’s what it means when it says they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. They said, as we’ve been saying since Sunday, Lord, I must, but I can’t. I will, but I can’t.

I’m weak. You’ve called me to do something that I cannot do. So, Lord, I need your help.

I’m going to partner with you to obey you. They are partnered with God. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost.

The same verse says, and they began to speak. They began to speak. They opened their mouth.

That’s what he’d been talking about for weeks. Preach the gospel to every creature. Repentance and remission of sins must be preached among all nations.

Now he says the uttermost part of the earth. And they came out of the upper room. and they began to speak.

And then the miraculous started happening. You know, if you agree with God and then partner with God and then open your mouth, you know what? You start to see the supernatural part of the Christian life.

And you know what happened. I think about this. I have kind of an imagination.

You do too. But here they are. They’ve been praying for 10 days and now there’s a sound of a rushing mighty wind and there are these cloven tongues as a fire.

Then you know what? They get out there, and of course, the town is full of Jews from around the world on the day of Pentecost. And they say, well, we’re going to go out and tell them all about Jesus.

We’re going to say, you know, the one that we crucified at the last festival day rose from the dead. He’s the Savior of the world. Ready to go?

I think I am. Let’s go. Out the door they go.

So they walk up to a guy, and there he is. He’s in town for the day of Pentecost. And they walk up to him.

They want to say, you know, Jesus of Nazareth, were you here for Passover? You know, he didn’t stay dead. He rose from the dead.

For you and me, they’re going to say it. They walk up to a perfect stranger, and they start to give the gospel, but they do this. They come up to the guy, and they say, Now, wait a minute.

I’m not talking about what they do at the Assembly of God. They see one of their Christian friends. they’ll say, you know what happened?

You know what? I gave this guy the gospel in Mesopotamian. I haven’t even taken one year of Mesopotamian.

Yeah, they go up to another guy and, you know, Elamite, and that’s what happened. I think they were stunned. You know what God said?

I’ll help you do it. They didn’t know exactly in what way that would happen, but what a day that was. Then, of course, the big fishermen got up who didn’t have a very good reputation.

The last time he was seen in public, he was denying Jesus Christ and using foul language. Remember that? They put him up to explain what was going on.

He told them about Jesus, his life, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension, and the very people who only a few weeks ago had said, Crucify him! We have no king but Caesar! Those very people cried out, Men and brethren, what shall we do?

And Peter said, repent. And everywhere they repented. And somehow 120 men, women, and children were charged with the task of baptizing 3,000 people.

Wasn’t that amazing? What happened? Jesus said, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.

Study that passage again. That’s not talking about how many of our young men college. That’s not talking about how many new missionaries we’re able to recruit.

You know what that’s about? Jesus said that to his disciples, followers. He said that harvest truly is plenteous.

If that means anything it means that another awakening is on the verge of happening. Another awakening is on the verge of happening. The harvest is plenteous but the laborers are few.

In the next chapter, he sends the 12 apostles out on a dry run for the Great Commission. You’ll probably go home and read this. That’s really what he does.

He gives them power. He gives them a commission, not the same one that we’ve got. He gives them promises and warnings.

And he says they’ll be rewarded. Very much like the Great Commission, it’s a dry run. And in that chapter, chapter 10 of Matthew, he calls them workmen, which in the Greek language is identical with the word laborers.

Now, here was the predicament. The harvest was plenteous. There were many ready to receive the gospel, but the laborers were few because the disciples of Jesus were not equipped to be laborers in the harvest.

And you know he said, pray ye therefore. Ten days before Pentecost, they prayed. And then, becoming laborers happened when they were filled with the Holy Ghost.

As followers, became equipped laborers. And they became the answer to their own prayers. And you know what we saw happening here?

what we saw happening was the plan of God with you and me about the Holy Ghost. Those who on the day of Pentecost got the well inside them let the rivers flow. An unlimited supply.

It satisfies all of my needs. He does. That day they let the rivers flow.

And you know what happened. Over the next century they turned the world upside down. Who’d have thunk it?

It was the potential of the one inside them. And they let the rivers flow. How?

John 15, he says, abide in me, you’ll bear much fruit. It says in John 15, now you’re clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. First get clean, then learn to abide in Christ, to live the life of faith we’ve talked about.

And let the rivers flow. Quench not the Spirit. Grieve not the Spirit.

Be filled with the Spirit. So interesting to me, I think I’ve said this here before. How many times I’ve heard a sermon from Ephesians 5 on five steps to being filled with the Spirit.

three steps to being filled with the Spirit or maybe two alliterated steps but the apostle Paul just says do it we have every reason to believe that everybody sealed with the Spirit knows how to be filled it has to do with yield it has to do with let the rivers flow you know you look at your neighborhood broken lives, miserable people lots of darkness all around us. Oh, Lord, please do something he already has. He put his spirit inside you.

You know what you’ve got inside? If you’ll take advantage of it, you’ve got the source of supplying your every need. Power, leadership, joy, love, peace.

It’s there. The wonderful well. Well, but he says, let the rivers flow.

Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup overflows. That’s what happened to them and to the world.

Has it happened since? Oh, yes. In the 1700s, there was a group meeting together in a chapel that’s called the Feder Lane Chapel.

It was New Year’s Eve, December the 31st, 1738, on to January the 1st, 1739. And they were Moravians, people of faith. They were praying for God to take over their lives.

Among them were some young men in the ministry who were there, Anglican preachers. who had a vision from the Moravians but were taking baby steps. In that all-night prayer meeting, we find John Wesley, Charles Wesley, George Whitefield.

They pray in Whitefield’s diary. He says that at 2 a.m., they had a Pentecostal season. He didn’t mean that they spoke in tongues.

He meant that the presence of God was manifested in a remarkable, powerful way. Secular history says that the evangelical revival in England began at the Federline Chapel watch night service. That night, they went out from that place, emboldened by the Holy Spirit to preach the gospel.

They went to the churches. They were booted out of the churches. Famously, John Wesley preached in his father’s church and was not allowed to preach there anymore and went to the church graveyard and stood on his father’s tomb, preached the gospel to hundreds of people.

Over the next several years, I’m going to tell you something wonderful happened, an amazing thing happened. The very men who were in the prayer meeting, plus others like Baptists, Andrew Fuller, were out in the open air preaching to hundreds and thousands and in some cases tens of thousands of people in an open field. Little short guy, John Wesley, an eloquent man, but he had amazing power.

Stood up and preached the gospel. They say one of the most powerful transforming sermons ever heard on planet Earth was Wesley’s sermon, Ye Must Be Born Again. And what we’re talking about is thousands and thousands of people were converted to Christ at a time when England was up to here in moral garbage.

Drunkenness, prostitution, acceptance of homosexuality as normal, and infidelity. What a hopeless country it was until the Christians let the rivers flow. And the gospel was preached and sung.

Charles Wesley was an evangelist, but also a songwriter. Before the next Christmas, after the Federal Lane Chapel watch night service, he had written the song, Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Glory to the newborn king, born to give us second birth.

Read, Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Imagine, I’ve got an imagination. Imagine it sung here, sung there, sung in the open air.

And then tonight we heard, and can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood? Died he for me who caused his pain? For me who him to death pursued amazing love?

How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me? not just confined to an evangelical church service like this, but in the open air. And the gospel became the most common subject in London and all across England.

Yesterday, we sang that song from the hymn book, Arise, my soul, arise. Shake off thy guilty fears, the bleeding sacrifice in thy behalf appears. Charles Wesley.

And you know the songs a lot of times can give us the atmosphere of the evangelical revival. Songs by William Cooper. Songs by others.

There was a fountain filled with blood that wasn’t just confined to an evangelical service. That was in the open air. The great evangelistic sermons.

Those were songs, if I can use the word, popular all over town. And the presence of God. charged the very atmosphere of England during those years.

And so much was done that turned the nation upside down that even today the royal family, if you ever see anything about the royal weddings and funerals, they are filled with evangelical songs. You know why? The Christians let the rivers flow and the nation was turned upside down in about 30 years.

now right now I think we may have an open door in the United States of America and in the world an open door through which we should go what shall we do about that open door be filled with the spirit they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak open your mouth surrender agree absolutely with him what you say you want for the world, I want for the world too. I am weak, but your strength is made perfect in weakness.

And then I’m not kidding you. Let the waters flow. 100 years ago, in the 1890s, that’s more than 100 years ago, Christian people in England and America, we have the facts about this, began to call on each other to pray for a worldwide revival as the new century began, the 1900s.

And they prayed and they expected it to come. And from 1901 to about 1912, we had some of the most phenomenal progress from the gospel that has ever been seen since the first century. Did you know that?

The Tory Alexander evangelistic campaigns all over the English-speaking world with so many say, The Welsh Revival was during that era. When the Welsh Revival came, Americans and Englishmen said, God has answered our prayers. This is what we asked for in the 90s.

The Korean Pentecost, they had turned a country that ought to be Buddhist to what today, one-third of the Koreans in South Korea claim to be Christians. When you ask them, how did that ever happen? They say the Korean Pentecost, 1907.

The Manchurian Revival, 1908. In India, praying Hyde. Ever heard of praying Hyde?

In America, Billy Sunday. Ever heard of Billy Sunday? I was always told that what got the crowds to hear Billy Sunday is he murdered the King’s English.

And he ran up and down the platform. He was a baseball player. And his antics and his strange ways brought the good.

No, that wasn’t it. You know what was happening during the early 1900s? The Christians were letting the rivers flow.

They were letting the rivers flow. People were coming in mass to take a drink. From what comes from inside, it was an amazing thing.

Bob Jones, Billy Sunday, J. Wilbur Chapman, all during that great era. And since, Tony and I believe in revival partially because we’ve been touched by the fire.

Tony’s my wife. Raise your hand, Tony. There she is.

One of the times we believed in revival in seminary, and we saw the workings of the Holy Spirit. But then in Jackson, Michigan, back in the early 70s, there’s a longer story, and of course, since I was involved in it, I’d love to tell you the story. But the bottom line was this.

There were a group of students at Jackson High School who let the rivers flow. public school. They had a vision, got down on their knees.

They got clean and right with God. They surrendered their lives to God. A few people got saved.

But you know what? The new converts saw the picture, sold out to Jesus Christ. They had no fear of opening their mouth for Jesus at the public school.

They went to the principal. They said, could we have a room before school where we could meet for prayer? He gave them a room.

They started praying there. I was told, because I had a little to do with the Bible club, about the prayer meetings in the morning, 8 o’clock. I was an assistant pastor who is very busy.

Assistant pastors are very busy. It wouldn’t fit into my schedule, but then what I heard made it so I changed my schedule. And I went down there at 8 o’clock in the morning.

There were about a dozen of them. How are you doing? Pastor Flanders, we’re doing fine.

Well, we just prayed. Most of them were new converts. They held hands.

They started talking to the Lord. And they started saying things like this. Now George, dear God, George has wrecked his life.

He needs Jesus. And Tom’s going to talk to him in study hall this afternoon. Would you be there, Lord?

Would you bring George to Jesus? We were hearing these names. They were praying.

Then I was hearing movement in the room. With my head bowed, my eyes closed reverently. If we were in a prayer meeting praying for their students, fellow students, and praying for the witnessing going on today, and I heard some rustling moving, finally after a few minutes I peaked, and then I counted.

We had 50 kids in there. I had heard they had 50 every morning. And not only that, I’m going to tell you a testimony.

For a period of three or four months, they saw public school students saved every day! Every day! every day who got saved today.

How do they do that? What was the curriculum? What was the gimmick?

You know what it was? They let the rivers flow. And you know what?

That’s the intention of God. To put a well inside you that will satisfy your every need but will be sufficient to meet the needs of people all around you. And our duty is to let the rivers flow, to love him, keep his commandments, surrender, and let the rivers flow.

My private time with God, drinking from the well, turning into something much more public. God sending me out to open my mouth, full of the Holy Ghost in the same way they were on the day of Pentecost, letting God lead me, give me the very words, gladly partnering with him, let the rivers flow. You know what?

We’re here for a conference, but I’m going to tell you, there is a great need in Menominee Falls, and we can see it with our eyes. there is a great need in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There are people not many miles from where we’re meeting now who are probably thinking about hurting themselves.

Some of them already have the plan. There’s so much darkness, but I’m going to tell you something. There’s an awful lot of light in this room.

It’s not just about buckling down and doing more, but it’s about the one inside coming out and doing the work that he does. reproving and drawing people to Jesus. And I’m going to tell you, it’s our duty to let the rivers flow.

I mean right here. How about tonight? I know it’s snowing.

Did you know a gathering over here for revival may just result in revival? And if it does, you know what? It might go to the gas stations.

It might go to the convenience stores. It might go to the neighborhoods. I don’t know what will happen.

If not tonight, maybe tomorrow. But I’ll tell you one thing for sure. When we get in our cars or get on the plane and go home, you know what we ought to do?

Because we already have the well. We ought to let the rivers flow. And we’re not talking about a trickle, a stream, or a fountain.

We’re talking about rivers! Enough to meet the needs of the whole world! Let’s stand and bow our heads.

Lord, in the last chapter of the Bible, you offer lost souls a drink from the water of life if they would. Lord, you’re still offering that drink. And Lord, in one metaphor, the drink will come from us.

Oh Lord, may we let the waters flow.

Let us give you an unreserved agreement with your plan, and may we be a part of it. May we surrender.

With our heads bowed, maybe you know the reason why God couldn’t use you. Now confess your sins. Let’s get ready.

Maybe you’re a person tonight who doesn’t know God. I’m going to tell you the last chapter of the Bible begins with a verse that talks about the living water, about the water of life flowing from the throne of God, and at the end of it, it offers you, if you want, to take a drink.

And you’ll never thirst again. And Christian people, if God has spoken to us in the last few days about issues between us and him, we know why. It’s because he wants to use us to impact people all around.

And it isn’t just coming forward on the appeal, let the rivers flow. It’s coming to God, dealing with the issues. Then coming into full agreement with him and saying, dear God, use me.

Let the rivers flow, rivers, from my pulpit, from my home, from my life, from my lips, starting now.