======================================================================== A REVIVAL OF CHRIST IN ME by Doug Detert ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the need to surrender idols, false knowledge, and self-importance to fully allow Jesus to work through individuals. It highlights the importance of having a humble heart, being willing to be used by God as a vessel, and focusing on the wonder of Jesus Christ Himself. The speaker urges listeners to let go of personal desires and beliefs to make room for God's power and glory to manifest through them. Duration: 1:07:14 Topics: "Surrendering Idols", "Humility in Service" Scripture References: Romans 12:3, 2 Corinthians 12:9, John 3:30, Colossians 1:27, Isaiah 64:1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the need to surrender idols, false knowledge, and self-importance to fully allow Jesus to work through individuals. It highlights the importance of having a humble heart, being willing to be used by God as a vessel, and focusing on the wonder of Jesus Christ Himself. The speaker urges listeners to let go of personal desires and beliefs to make room for God's power and glory to manifest through them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Holy Father, bless us, oh Lord, that you pull us out of the darkness into the light. Bless us, that you allow for us to be children that sits before your most holy feet. Much more blessed Father of the privilege, that you allow for us to hold your holy word, give us an anointing, an anointing from the Holy One. It comes down upon us, oh Lord, and allows for us to speak words from your holy book to your people and to those that need to hear it most. Lord, you have planted seeds and thoughts and intent of your holiness, oh Lord, inside of Doug, and he can bring forth the word now to us. And so Lord, again, that you would bring that to fruition for your kingdom, for your will, your anointing of your Holy Spirit be upon him from the top of his head to the sole of his feet. And that which comes forth, Lord, is not of himself. Lord, we've died to that. We just want you to be high and lifted up. Do that now, Lord, in these minutes in front of us, Lord. And let thy Holy Spirit guide, lead, and direct us in response, the ears to hear, the minds to understand, the hearts to receive. Lord, let the words go forth. And as you promised, and as you said, my word, it will not return unto me void. Fulfill and accomplish, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. I certainly want to express my thanks to Greg Gordon for organizing this conference, a burden of his heart, to bring so many speakers together. It's rather unusual to have a conference with so many speakers. And I appreciate the lowliness of each one who shared. Preachers like to preach, but we're being restrained to one hour each, and that's nice. I like that. I also want to express to my Lord my deepest appreciation for his mercies to me. Specifically, there are four in number, and I've been thanking the Lord continuously for over 50 years for these four things, and I want to express them openly today. I am eternally thankful for Jesus. He's God's new man, a life-giving spirit, a quickening spirit, to whom I owe everything. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift of Jesus. And I want to say openly and publicly, I love Jesus, and I owe him everything. Secondly, I want to give thanks with my whole heart for the blood of Jesus, without which I have no right to stand before God, and without which I deserve to be in hell forever. God has loved me and redeemed me to himself by Jesus' blood and loosed and washed me from my sins, and I can never, ever thank him enough. We sing a hymn often at home. You probably know it, the old Pentecostal hymn, Comforter Has Come. One of those verses says, O boundless love divine, how shall this tongue of mine to wandering mortals tell, the matchless grace divine, that I, a child of hell, should in his image shine? The Comforter Has Come. I am so thankful for the blood of Jesus. By that blood, I've been loosed from the kingdom of darkness and been translated into the kingdom of God's dear son. Thank God. And third, and I've been doing this, as I said, for 50 years and more, but I thank God for his word, his creative, life-giving, transforming word. I cannot imagine living without the Bible. It's the only pure thing in the world. Did you know that? Thy word is very pure. Therefore thy servant loveth it. His word has been refined by fire seven times, the scripture says. It's pure. I thank God for his word. I was rejoicing in what Brother Sandeep said about the new covenant. He doesn't know my own relation to the new covenant. I'll share it very briefly here at the beginning in appreciation for God's word. I went through a time of terrible mental torment, 1968. I've been a believer all my life, but I was very much tormented mentally. And where I was being trained, we were required to spend two hours every day in the word and prayer. And for two weeks, all I could do, I lay on the floor, with my hands on Jeremiah 31, and I quoted the new covenant over and over and over and over again. The Lord said, I'll put my law in your mind and write it in your heart. I'll be your God. You'll be my people. They'll all know me from the least to the greatest because I will forgive their iniquity and I won't remember their sins anymore. I went over it so much. I memorized it. And then I added a few verses after and a few verses before, until I memorized the whole chapter of Jeremiah 31. And it saved my life. And I kept saying to the Lord, you said you would do this. You said you would put your law in my mind. You said it. I didn't make that up. You said it. You've got to do it for me or I am going to lose my mind. And for two weeks, two hours a day, I clung to that with all my heart. So God convinced me he was right and he would keep his word and he would renew my mind. So I am so thankful for the word of God. I knew a man years ago who had been in terrible evil, a minister. I don't want to describe the detail. The Lord had brought him out of it, but he did something I want to do in front of you today to express to you my appreciation for the word of God. He said to us, brokenhearted, but restored. He took his Bible and he said, you know what I think of this book? And he hugged it like this. And then he went, never left me. That's how I feel. I am so thankful for the word of God. And fourth, I thank God for the promise and gift of the Holy Spirit. My heavenly helper. I have a helper. Hallelujah. I have the breath of God to keep me alive in a polluted world, to help me breathe real, fresh, pure air, the air of heaven, the breath of God. I have the Holy Spirit given to me as a gift who takes the things of Christ and rehearses them to me continually. Thank you, Father, for the Holy Spirit. And I've adopted what an ex missionary who taught a class on prayer in the Bible school I was attending, who said, I often say to the Holy Spirit, my precious Ann Sullivan. Does that mean anything to any of you? Do you know who Ann Sullivan was? The woman who taught Helen Keller to read and write and understand life when Helen was not only blind, but deaf and managed to break through into that woman's consciousness. That's what the Holy Spirit means to me. My Ann Sullivan, who took a dumb, deaf and blind young man and taught him how to cope in life. I thank God for those things. What is my background and why would I talk about revival? And how long, oh Lord. Well, I found out there's two of us here that are the same age, brother Edgar Reich and I were born in the same year. I was born in Montana while the U.S. was fighting a war against his country in Germany. We were born at the same time. And here we are, brother. Isn't that wonderful? But in my vapor-like life of 75 years, I have been influenced by one worldwide revival and I've been a part of two others. I have been greatly influenced by the Pentecostal outpouring at the beginning of the 20th century. Many writers have chronicled that, not the least of which is J. Edwin Orr. I was so thankful. David Guzik held up his book about the second great evangelical awakening and full surrender, which I think is out there still in the foyer. I was very privileged to meet Dr. Orr in 1964. He came to the Bible college I was attending. He apparently knew the teacher, Dr. Menzies, who was quite knowledgeable about revival. And I was taking a class called the history of revival. And Dr. Orr came and taught one of those classes. He exuded the presence of Jesus. I hope that you will either read the book or I think there are many messages by J. Edwin Orr on Sermon Index. His understanding of revival is unequaled in my opinion, but it is in that heritage that he chronicles as well as other revivals. But the Pentecostal outpouring at the beginning of the 1900s, that's my heritage. My testimony is embedded in the history and reality of the revival that took place worldwide. It was a globe encircling revival in the early part of the 20th century and continuing even into my day. My mother was saved during a high tide of that revival. And she brought me to Christ as a boy. I was trained for ministry for over six years by individuals who'd been saved and baptized in the Holy Ghost in that outpouring. They were participants and recipients of that tremendous outpouring of the Holy Ghost that took place in those early years. I can never thank God enough for that heritage. The place where I was trained was called the Zion Faith Homes. I have recently written an account of that work. Amazing place. I spent 30 years there. And Brother Greg has allowed me to mention that to you. And if you would like a copy of that book, please see either one of those two ladies that I sit with. They're both called Liz, so you can call Liz and two of them will come. And I have a few copies with me if you're interested. Those people were engulfed by a wave of revival. And that's where my heritage comes from. I myself was baptized in the Holy Spirit when I was 14 years old. We've heard about urgency, desperation, crying out to God. I was so desperate for the baptism of the Holy Ghost. I was in a camp meeting in Springfield, near Springfield, Illinois. And I told the Lord, I will not leave this building until you fill me with the Holy Ghost. I don't care if everybody's gone and they turn out all the lights. I'm not moving until you fill me with the Holy Spirit. I was 14. And God heard me. Thank you, Jesus. I've also written a small little book. I only have a few copies of it with me called Level and Plum, which is really my testimony. You're welcome to heaven. But that was a heritage. I've participated also in two other revivals. And God moved again in a very significant way worldwide in the late 40s and early 1950s. I was a participant in that revival. I attended Sunday night services. Sunday night was the big meeting when I was a boy, not the Sunday morning meeting. It was Sunday night. The church was next to a tavern. We often had drunks come in and would get saved. And so many people got saved on Sunday night in those meetings. And people were baptized in the Holy Ghost in those meetings. We just expected people to get saved, healed, and baptized in the Holy Ghost. It was a revival. It was normal. I've spent hours at the altar seeking the Lord. I went forward dozens of times to consecrate my life to God for his service. I didn't care where he sent me. I told him, you can even send me to China, which to me seemed the most difficult place in the world to minister the gospel at the time. I said, I'll go anywhere. I'll do anything. My wife, the same. We were in those outpourings. I know what it feels like. Many of the names that God raised up that at that time you would be familiar with, Billy Graham was raised up at that time. Gordon Lindsay, who founded Christ for the Nations, actually had been a speaker, a preacher for William Branham. And I was in William Branham's meetings when I was young. T.L. Osborne, Oral Roberts, even Leonard Ravenhill, who became a very dear, personal friend of mine. They were part of that move of God in the late 40s and early 50s. Yes, I understand that not everything that begins well ends well. I know all about the latter rain movement and all of the aberrations that came with it. But of course, the devil's always counterfeiting stuff. So what? I don't throw away the bills in my wallet because there's a lot of counterfeits out there. In those days, God poured out his spirit on all flesh. And I wonder if you would even believe some of the things that I could tell you that I saw and heard from my witnesses. But there was a second tremendous move of God in my lifetime. It became known as the Charismatic Renewal Movement. It was a move of God. Tremendous. I'm a participant in that. My wife and I were privileged to attend what was called the Second World Conference on the Holy Spirit. Quite a pretentious title. But anyway, that was the title of the meeting. The Second World Conference on the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem, Israel. My wife and I went to the whole thing. We were very privileged. I won't talk about that. It's not my point. But I was part of that. And again, I'm well aware of the corrective responses that were needed to that movement and the various offshoots of it. But I'm not here to debate any of the issues that arose out of all of it. Somebody else can do that if they want. But nobody can deny its effect on the church. There was an outpouring of God worldwide called the Charismatic Renewal Movement. It was real. It was wonderful. Worldwide. I'm thankful for that. But here's where we are. Now what? Now what? I'm going to tell you real quickly kind of part of my struggle with all of this and why I would be even talking this way. I spent two weeks at a castle in the St. Lawrence Seaway. It's now known as the Singer Castle. Dark Island it was called. And I was a guest along with my wife of Leonard Ravenhill and Martha and David, his son, and Martha, Len's wife, and David and Nancy and their daughter Lisa was the only one then. And Leonard Ravenhill had invited us to come up there and spend a couple of weeks. He knew the owner of the castle. It's an amazing place. And he brought in various people to minister. And one of them, well, what happened was Len wanted all of us that were there, his son and me, to be prayed over. So this brother and another lady, I won't use their names, but they came and prayed over me and I wasn't doing well. They said, well, you were with Leonard Ravenhill. You should have been doing well. Well, you're with Jesus and you don't always do well either. And they started to pray for me and I said, Lord, I'm gonna turn myself to ice. They're not gonna get anywhere with me. Let them pray. I was naughty, very naughty. And I said, let them pray. And so they started praying and then I heard them whispering. And the lady said to the man that was praying for me, I can't get anywhere with this brother. Can you? I said, good, just what I want. And all of a sudden that brother said something that just absolutely broke me. Said, no, no, no, you don't understand. This brother has a spirit crying out inside of him, like Gideon, where the miracles our fathers told us of. Talk about a gracious God. And it was true. There was something in me where the miracles our fathers told us of came out of my heart, but I didn't even know it was there. So I'm glad to participate. Thank you. I'm honored to be among such wonderful brethren as we listened to this week. The rest of my talk is going to focus on what has God begun to do? When will it be answered and how will it be answered? And how can I be a part of it? Well, I begin with a passage you heard and talked about already several times from the speakers that have preceded me, Isaiah 64, 1 to 4. I've heard Leonard Ravenhill pray this with tears and agony. I prayed it myself. We were required to memorize it when I was a student. It's still there, the cry of my heart. Oh, that thou wouldest render heavens. That thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence. Mountains in Isaiah generally represent nations, high nations, usually. I know you can spiritualize it. As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence. When you did terrible things which we looked not for, you came down, the mountains flowed down at your presence. For since the beginning of the world, men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eyes seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waits for him. So I approach this question with that introductory scripture. Things that we don't know, we haven't heard, haven't seen. Oh, we've had taste, but brother and sister, God is about to do something that we've never even imagined. I make the following observations. We're surely in the time when the cup of iniquities come to the full. Would you agree with that? I don't know how it can get any worse. And I say that every few years, and then it gets worse. But I don't know how it can get much worse. We've crossed lines in this country, terrible lines. I don't want to go into that. Evil's risen to unimaginable heights until it's quite true what Jesus said, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the son of man, that the evil of men's hearts, the imagination of men's hearts was only evil continually and running right through the air here right now are the most unimaginable images of evil. You only need the right thing to pull it down to you. It's unbelievable. The devil has put himself in every home and at the fingertips of every computer. Cup of iniquity has come to the full. However, we are most assuredly in the time of what Jesus called the full grain in the ear. That means what he planted in the church, Christianity, faith, the gospel, and all has been growing, growing, growing, growing, but like a wheat stalk, finally the moment comes when those wheat grains are up at the top of that stock ready to be harvested. And that full grain in the ear is nothing less than the image of Jesus Christ perfectly formed in his people. That's what Paul calls in Ephesians one, the dispensation of the fullness of times. What he says later in Ephesians four, not likely that was written by the Holy ghost when he said, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God unto a perfect man under the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Ooh, it thrills me just to say it. We who are the body of Christ now on the earth, the temple of God individually and collectively must now be filled with the glory of God as the earthly Solomon's temple was so filled with the glory, the priest had to run out. We're there. It's the time for every word of Psalm 110 to be fulfilled. And especially verse three, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning thou has to do of thy youth. The word willing in Hebrew is actually a noun. Thy people shall be willingness utterly submitted in the day of your power. It is the day of his power. It's the dawn of God's morning into which we have come. Jesus life actually lived out in his people is the do of that morning. Jesus is going to see the pleasure of the Lord prosper in his hand. He is going to see the outcome of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. His life, death and resurrection will not go unrequited. We have come to another pivot point of the ages. The point at which the image of God is being fully restored to the human race. I say another pivot point because the previous one was the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It was a pivot point. The whole history of mankind pivoted at that moment, moment, I say 30 some years, but everything in history pivoted. The old vanished away according to Hebrews and replaced with something new. We say we went from law to grace and it's true, but we are now approaching what I just quoted from Psalm 110. We are moving from the day of grace to the day of power. The reality of Christ in you, the hope of glory is about to be manifested. It is the day of the unveiling of the sons of God. When in the words of Revelation 11, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. Hallelujah. Now I'm kind of leaving some of the gaps out to make sure I finish when I should, but you fill in the blanks. I'm moving to another observation. Nothing less than Christ revealed in the apostle Paul was sufficient for the gospel to spread in the first century from Jerusalem to Antioch and westward to Asia Minor, Crete, Greece, and eventually to Italy. Did you hear me? Paul's testimony in Galatians 1 16 was when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal his son in me, not just to me, in me. And he refers to it in Galatians 2 20, which we all quote, I am crucified with Christ. Oh, it's not Buddhism. It's not Hinduism. Nevertheless, I live. Yet it's not I, but Christ who lives in me and the life I live. Now I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave myself for me. I can't find a single commentary that takes that literally. One of the most famous one says, of course, we have to realize there was a certain amount of spiritual give and take to that statement. He didn't really mean that Christ was living in him. Oh, he said to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 13 3, since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, he wrote 13 possibly to count Hebrews. I don't know who wrote Hebrews, but anyway, half of the New Testament we call the word of God who wrote it. How could he say I'm speaking what Jesus is saying word for word, and I'm putting it down on paper and it is the word of God. It's Christ speaking in me. Do you know any preachers who would dare to say that now? Books have been written. I was assigned to read some of them on Paul's methods and strategies for missionary evangelism. But they often miss the vital point. It was Christ in Paul unveiled and revealed that birth what he was able to produce in the spread of the gospel. It was Jesus in him, in his daily life, in his words, and in his writings. It wasn't a method. It wasn't a strategy. It wasn't a studied effort. It was Christ in him revealed. He was careful. He said, not as though I had already attained you that were already perfect. But I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I'm apprehended of Christ. But this one thing I do forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And I don't like the modern translations of that. I don't know if brother Keith Daniels is hearing this, but I don't like some of the modern translations either, but they say the upward call. No, it's a high calling. And at the end of that chapter, he says, for our citizenship is not in heaven, not on earth, but in heaven from whence also we look for the savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, dare I say what I'm wanting to say who shall rapture us and take us out of this miserable world. No, we look for the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile bodies. Why vile in comparison to that one, Jesus body, who shall change our natural body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things to himself. Would you kindly put your name in there like you do with John 3 16, able to subdue me unto himself so that it's all Christ and no more me. That's the revival that's coming. We might correctly say that when Paul experienced the life of Christ revealed in him, it was a taste of something God is going to do in the last days for such fire to break forth again as the consummation of this present age descends upon us nothing less than Jesus Christ revealed in his people will be sufficient to ignite revival fires in this country and around the world. The next and final great revival will be the unveiling of Jesus Christ within his people. Oh, I know that Christ dwells in you. I agree completely, but he has, has he been revealed when they encounter you? Do they encounter Christ? May I put it this way? I really believe that Jesus is coming to his people before he comes for his people. Let me use an illustration from scripture, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. You say, well, Daniel's a prophetic book, especially those last six, seven chapters, six chapters. Well, I think it's prophetic from the very start. Daniel and his friends lived in a very alien and horrible environment in Babylon. But they didn't reconstruct the temple of Jerusalem in Babylon. So they'd have a place to go worship. Where was the temple of God? Where was God dwelling in Babylon during that time? In them, in them. Talk about change our natural body. Those boys became fireproof. There's not even anything quite like that in the New Testament yet. Daniel, the lions couldn't turn him into McDaniel sandwich. Why? He was so full of God. Who ruled in Babylon? Nebuchadnezzar? No, Daniel and his friends. Who had the last word? Daniel and his friends. Daniel lived through the whole thing. Nebuchadnezzar, his son, his grandson. Then he went through all of that with Darius the Mede. And then he went on and was still living when Cyrus made the decree to go back to the land. He lived through the whole thing, completely impervious to what was around him. It was the understanding of God's possession of them physically. It's in that understanding that we can understand that the rest of the book is prophetic as well as that first part. It's a picture of what God's going to do in the last days. Some of the things we've heard about already in these meetings, touches of God here and there, breaking out and so on. Brother and sister, really, if I were to picture it, I'm a math major. That was my background. But if I were to picture it mathematically, I would put two circles together and I would overlap them so that there's just a little bit of intersection there of two great circles. One is the age of grace. The next one's the age of power. And the two circles have already intersected. And the age of power will come in with the age of grace. It isn't that grace fades out. It isn't that law faded out in the sense that now we don't have to obey. The law moved from outside to inside under grace. And in the age of power, grace will be manifested in the power of God to give life when the world is decaying. We're already in it. We're not just coming into it. We're in it. And there are touches of it already. But we have little idea of how great it's going to be. Is this present age? I've heard Len Ravenhill preach on this many times. Is this present age to end without a full and consistent testimony of Jesus revealed to the world through the church? How can God judge the world for rejecting Jesus when they haven't seen him in us? Has the love of Jesus flowing to us and through us really been made visible in all its purity and power? I can't go into detail. Time won't allow. But I can testify to the truth of what I'm saying. Because I've seen and heard things that birth this flaming faith into the deepest parts of my being. The devil is doing terrible things in these days, but Jesus will not be behind. No human being, no demon from hell, not even the devil himself can stop what Paul described in Romans 8 from being fulfilled. I know there's so much twisted teaching from this passage, but please don't cut it out of your Bible. Here it is. I reckon that the sufferings of this present time, Romans 8, 18, are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation, really is the right word there, was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope, because the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. And we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit, the redemption of our bodies. One of my favorite hymns written by Gypsy Smith. My mother heard him speak, Christ the transforming light touches this heart of mine. Piercing the darkest night, making his glory shine. Oh, to reflect his grace, causing the world to see love that will glow till others shall know Jesus revealed in me. Well, as much as I would like to continue in this vein, I feel led to ask a personal question, and one that avoids controversy and brings this message home to each one of us. As it has often been brought home already in this conference, but I've got to say what the Lord gave me. The question is what would hinder the outbreak of such a revival? The Lord in my life and experience has brought to light three things. I'm going to be brief, but please pay attention. Number one, what is your idol? We heard our brother speak on idolatry briefly the other day, yesterday. What is your idol? I think it was Brian Long who touched on it, spoke about the first love and what you can put in the place of the first love. Millie and I have traveled a lot. We've been to India many, many times. I've lost count of how many times I've seen Westerners bowing down to idols in a Buddhist temple and in a Hindu temple. I almost puked. I just couldn't believe my eyes. They're bowing down to actual images of gods, and yet what can I say? Don't Westerners have idols? Did you know, I'm really shrinking this, but did you know that Paul said covetousness is idolatry? What do you covet? What will you sacrifice of your life with Christ in order to gain it? Are you literally free of all covetousness? If you aren't, you've got an idol somewhere. You want to know where it is? Let God take it away and listen to you how. You can make an idol out of getting ahead. You can make an idol out of your reputation. You can make an idol out of doctrines or even ministry or pet theories about the end times. You can make an idol out of anything. The desire to be admired, secret life or love of some work of the flesh, God forbid, can be an unjust attachment to somebody. Most abominable of all, it can be a worship of your own intellect. And once you say, I think everyone should bow down to you because what you think is so sacred. If you don't believe what I'm saying, instead of fasting from food all the time, why don't you fast from certain things you say? And two of them that I've actually made some of our young people that we train do this. I'd like you to fast for a whole week from two expressions. I know, and I think. You'd be amazed how often you say that. And I told them, I don't care what you think. And I don't want to know that you know. Just fast from that for a while. You'll find out you idolize what you think. The definition of the first love, which replaces all idolatry that we were given as young people. I treasure it. The first love is not a great desire to go to work for Jesus. The first love is the awakening of the heart to the wonder of just Jesus Christ himself. Do you see Jesus and? Are you looking for place? Do you have plans? Or is your heart awakened? I can feel chills going up and down my spine as I say this. Is your heart awakened to the wonder of just Jesus Christ himself? Do you know the supreme descriptions of Jesus in Hebrews 1, Colossians 1, John 1? Do you worship him for who he is? For revival to come, every heart, every idol in your heart has got to be destroyed. General Booth's daughter, Catherine Booth Cliburn wrote, come Holy Ghost, thy mighty aid bestowing. Destroy the works of sin, the self, the pride, burn, burn in me, my idols overthrown. Prepare my heart for him, for my Lord crucified. Amy Carmichael wrote, from subtle love of softening things, from easy choices, weakenings, not thus our spirits fortified, not this way went the crucified. From all that dims thy calvary, O Lamb of God, deliver me. Second, quickly, you're going to have to let go of what you think you know. I just read my notes quickly. If I go on out of my notes, I'll go too long. If any man thinks that he knows anything, Paul wrote, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. It is a shock to us when Jesus says you're mistaken in what you think you know. It's not as you see it. I've had to face this many times myself. I was so sure I was right and I needed Jesus to straighten out my thinking. The Pharisees thought they knew. The Lord led me to study the word know in the gospel of John. In all its forms, I was shocked at what people thought they knew and they were utterly wrong. What do I think I know? That Jesus says, you're mistaken. You think you know that, but you don't. One of the outstanding ones is in John 3. I'll tell you, this is really powerful when you study it. Nicodemus opens his conversation with Jesus. We know that you are a teacher sent from God. Within a matter of seconds, Jesus starts to talk about the new birth and Nicodemus is befuddled. Jesus says to him politely and lovingly, what? You're a teacher in Israel and you don't know these things? What do you think he would say to us preachers these days who think we know everything about everybody and every subject and we're completely wrong? Revival in my study of it is hindered by what people think they know, including me. The real answer to that is, do you really know Jesus? That was Paul's consuming desire that I may know him. Can you honestly look into Jesus' eyes and say to him, I know you. And he looks politely at you and he smiles sweetly and he says, you think you know, but you don't know me. The Lord said to me, please remember that fully one quarter of each of the gospels is given over to the last week of my life before I died. And then a little addendum about what happened afterwards. Are you sure you know me and you're not willing to go to the cross with me? To state it as succinctly as I can, there's a lot behind what I'm about to say. One of the most formidable of all principalities and powers in the invisible world is a spirit whose name is I know and whose companion is I'm the one. God destroy those spirits in his church. I know, I'm the one. You don't realize how much of that is in you until God begins to deal with what you think you know. Third, what you believe about yourself, God will attack with a vengeance you can't imagine. What you believe about yourself, I think someone has called it the horror of self encounter. When I was in the eighth grade, I memorized that verse from Romans 12. It says, I think it's don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but I memorized it in Phillips translation back then, which was don't cherish exaggerated ideas about your own importance, but try to have a sane estimate of your capabilities. Can I give you an example? I've got to wind this down. In those meetings that I talked about when we were in the Thousand Islands with Leonard Ravenhill and his family, he was asked to speak by the owner of the castle, whose name I won't give you. It was a Sunday morning. They invited people from all around there, rich people mostly. The moderator, the introducer said when he introduced Leonard Ravenhill, he said, and we're so privileged this morning to have one of the three greatest speakers in America. I knew Len well enough to know that that wasn't going to sit real well with him. He didn't say anything, got up and spoke. Soon as the service was ended, I was sitting on this side right over there on the end in the meeting room. He came straight down from the platform. He came straight up to me, looked me in the eye. He had an unusual way of saying Doug. He didn't say Doug the way I do. It was almost duck, not quite. He had just a slight English touch to it and he said, Doug, did you hear that introduction this morning? I said, yes, brother. I was in my early 20s. Yes, brother, I heard what he said. He said to me, did you ever hear such verbal vomit in your life? That was worth a thousand sermons to me on humility. He was impervious to flattery. He didn't have a high opinion of himself. You might be surprised, although I hope not, by this enduring maxim found in the first chapter of Madame Guyon's autobiography in French, Guillaume. Maybe you know that name. Lenoreno gave me my first copy. They never told me about Madame Guillaume in Bible college. She said, if you are fully convinced that it is on the nothing in man that God establishes his greatest works, you may be guarded against disappointment or surprise. The nothing in man. What do you say to yourself about yourself? The words form in you almost unconsciously. You think about what you think you are. Nebuchadnezzar isn't this great Babylon that I built. You're going to eat like an ox grass for a while. What you think about yourself is destroyed. Diotrephes, third John, who loves to have the preeminence among you. That's what he thought about himself. I'm the first. It's almost impossible to exaggerate the negative effect that your self-assessments have on you, unless they are shaped by God himself. All right. What's the right thing? Paul had it. Your calling is different than who you are. Your calling is one thing. Paul said in his defense in 2 Corinthians 12, I'm not behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing. Have you said that about yourself in a godly way? Able to separate your calling from who you are. All right. I'm closing. This is the analogy the Holy Spirit gave me years ago. God writes the music for the great organ performances that will be played for mankind. Jesus plays the keyboard with all its ranks, stops, pedals, and pipes. The Holy Spirit provides the air that makes the pipes sound according to the composer's intent and the performer's skill at the keyboard. We're just the pipes through whom it all sounds. I'm just the pipe. That's all I am. Are you willing to say that? I accept my role to sound when the composer says I'm supposed to sound, and Jesus presses the key. I'll let the Holy Ghost go through me, and I'll make a sound. This is the vow I took when I became a minister. I see nothing ahead of me but to lose my life for Jesus and for others, to become a hole in the ground, a cipher, a zero, that Jesus might fountain forth through me to others. That's all I see. I was born the first time that I might be born again. In my new birth, I'm born to serve. I am nothing. I can do nothing. I don't know anything apart from Jesus. To be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be possessed by him, means that I will become a love light to all who interact with me. That's what I believe about myself. I invite you to share in that belief about yourself and become a pipe in a great orchestral organ performance that God is about to play for mankind. Will you just be willing to be a pipe? Let's pray. Lord, I try to give what you would say to these precious people that are here and that are listening. I hope you're pleased. If not, you can straighten me out. I don't mind. If I've said something that pleases you, then I pray that people even forget that I said it and they will take it from you. Learn of you, the great rabbi. Oh, Holy Spirit, take these few loaves and fishes and multiply them to many. In Jesus' name, amen. God bless you. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/nkma_VkX0AM.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/doug-detert/a-revival-of-christ-in-me/ ========================================================================