ARME 13: Camp Mokkuleia, HI - Dec 2012

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Fire From Heaven

A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs.

There must be earnest effort to obtain the blessing of the Lord.

Not because God is not willing to bestow His blessing upon us, but because we deserve to receive it.

Our Heavenly Father is more willing to give us the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him than our earthly parents to give good gifts to their children.

But it is our work by confession, humiliation, repentance, and earnest prayer to fulfill the conditions upon which God has promised to grant us his blessing.

A revival need be expected only in answer to prayer.

Father in heaven, we're desperate for your spirit this morning.

We're desperate for you to transform our hearts and our lives.

And God, we want to care more about the world out there.

We want to love the world like you love the world.

We want to care for souls like you care for them.

Please touch our hearts this morning, I pray, through the power of your word.

John Knox was a man on a mission, a supernatural mission.

John Knox was a man who boldly and regularly confronted and rebuked Queen Mary of Scotland.

And he would regularly rebuke the Catholic Church.

In fact, for opposing Roman Catholicism, he was imprisoned and made to serve as a galley slave.

He ended up being a galley slave and eventually public opinion was so strong that he'd be let out of prison.

When that happened, God used him to work a mighty revival and reformation in Scotland.

An incredible reformation swept through that country.

It's incredible to hear what Queen Mary had to say.

She was trembling and in tears when she declared, I am more afraid of the prayers of John Knox than all the assembled armies of Europe." Wow!

No wonder Knox could say, a man with God is the majority.

You see, Revival and reformation only takes place when men and women are so burdened for the salvation of souls that they are driven to their knees in prayer.

A revival need only be expected in answer to prayer.

We read at the beginning and first selected messages, page 121.

Gospel of Workers, page 297 says this, The Lord God of Israel is watching every worker to see whether he is in earnest, whether he carries upon his heart the burden of souls.

God sees whether his servants touch these living interests with the ends of their fingers, or whether they grasp them with all their might.

If all had the interest that Knox felt when he cried, give me Scotland or I die, a wrestling with God that will not be denied, the Lord would work with their efforts and would give them souls for their hire.

Are we willing to wrestle with 4 souls like that?

Are we willing to say, give me Oahu or I die?

Are we willing to say, give me California or I die?

Are we willing to say, God, I don't know what it's going to take, but I need to see a revival in my family.

I need to see my wife, my husband revived.

I need to see my son, my daughter come to know Jesus Christ.

I'm willing to wrestle with God in prayer.

That's what a messenger of God calls us to.

Turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 17.

1 Kings, actually let's go back to chapter 16 in verse 30.

It tells us another story about another Reformer who was bold enough to step out and to face a nasty queen.

The Bible says, And Ahab the son of Amri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him.

And it came about as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he married Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worshipped him." Again and again, we're running into idolatry.

Everywhere we look in the Bible, it's idol worship is the problem.

Trusting in anything but the living God, and how the living God can send us on a supernatural mission, how the living God can provide for all of our needs.

Verse 32, so he erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria.

Thus Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him." Ahab was not a good dude.

In fact, he was 1 of the worst of all the kings that ever ruled.

God had a mission for a man named Elijah.

It says, Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives before whom I stand, surely there will be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word.

Who just walks in past the guards of a king and into his throne room and says, there's going to be no rain?

Who does that but a man who knows before whom he stands?

Who knows that he's not standing before some king who is misguided, idol-worshipping king.

He knows that he is standing before God Himself.

Elijah just suddenly pops up at this point in the story.

And there's not much background into it, but listen to what we hear about in Prophets and Kings, page 119.

Viewing the apostasy that was going on from his mountain retreat, Elijah was overwhelmed with sorrow.

In anguish of soul, he besought God to arrest the once favored people in their wicked course, to visit them with judgments, if need be, that they might be led to see in its true light their departure from heaven.

He longed to see them brought to repentance." There Elijah was.

He was in his mountain retreat and he saw all that Ahab was doing.

He saw all that was going on, and he began to plead with God.

To plead with God to bring about a revival.

You see, Elijah didn't just wake up 1 morning, hear God's voice, and walk into the chambers of Ahab, into his palace and tell him this.

Elijah had been praying that God would do something mighty.

Elijah's ministry was characterized by earnest prayer and persistent prayer throughout.

It's incredible if you read down and you read about how He was cared for by the ravens that bring the bread from heaven for Him.

And then you have the widow of Zarephath who cares for Him.

And then something happens to the widow's son that I want us to look at starting in v.

Now it came about after these things that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick.

And his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him.

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