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  A REVIVAL OF HUMILITY
  by Kevin Turner
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of true revival, focusing
on the need for a heart transformation and a shift from compliance to
principle in serving God. It shares powerful testimonies of faith,
sacrifice, and the impact of genuine love and humility in the face of
adversity. The speaker reflects on personal struggles and the desire for
a deeper relationship with God, urging a surrender of self-centered
motives and a genuine pursuit of Christ-likeness.

Duration: 1:00:51

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the importance of true revival, focusing on the
need for a heart transformation and a shift from compliance to principle
in serving God. It shares powerful testimonies of faith, sacrifice, and
the impact of genuine love and humility in the face of adversity. The
speaker reflects on personal struggles and the desire for a deeper
relationship with God, urging a surrender of self-centered motives and a
genuine pursuit of Christ-likeness.

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CONTENT
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I am honored to be here and stand and speak of the one who alone set me
free, delivered me out of the muck and the mire. Psalm 113 is my
testimony for who is like unto the Lord our God. He looks down upon the
poor and the needy and he lifts us out of the ash heap and the dung
hill.

And thank God he doesn't stop there but he sets us at a table with
princes. And I believe that was a foreshadowing of the day that when we
would sit at a table and have fellowship of the Lamb of God. Well today
I've been asked to come and speak at this revival conference.

I have spent about the last month in preparation for what I will share
today. And I can tell you that I am more unclear of what I will say
today than I was last night. I have myriads of notes, I have scripture
verses, I have so many things jotted down that I thought, ah this is
what to say, this is what to say.

The number one thing I believe that's essential for anyone to stand
behind this sacred desk is you realize it's not your platform. It
doesn't belong to me. Instead you stand here as a agape doulos, a love
slave, God's love filling you.

And then as such you speak, in fact I will tell you some of you may have
read about them, the Covenanters were incredible people. One of the
Covenanters, his name was Donald Cargill. You can read about his
testimony in a great book put up by Banner of Truth Trust called A Cloud
of Witnesses or Great Cloud of Witnesses.

I remember I read this testimony shortly after I was born again January
22nd 1989. I was there alone on my living room floor and I met the Lamb
of God who takes away my sins and the sins of the world. Shortly after I
was hooked up with an incredible man of God who discipled me by not only
talking, communicating, and praying but sending books and one of the
books that was recommended to me was this book Cloud of Witnesses.

I don't even have to turn back to the page. The page actually is marked
with my tears because it's all crinkled on that book. It's also marked
with pieces of toilet paper because I was weeping and crying.

Anybody that knows me much knows it doesn't take much to make me cry
anyway but this certainly seemed to rip my heart out. I was reading
about a man, one of the Covenanters, Donald Cargill, who actually
incidentally he preached his last sermon doing pull-ups. Preached his
last sermon doing pull-ups and his pull-ups were a little bit different
than what you think.

It wasn't because he was a health nut and he inhabited the gym. In fact
it was because he inhabited the throne room of grace that he ended up
spending the last of his life. His last sermons were actually preached
while he was hanging on to the prison bars.

There was a small area for air exchange up there that were barred. It
was right near the ground level. He was down below but he found that if
he jumped up he could grab those bars, he could pull his lips to the
iron and he preached Christ and him crucified.

Christ alone the head of the church. While the king said, no if you say
that you'll go to prison, he said, I cannot have my conscience offended
because Christ alone is the head of the church. Donald Cargill actually,
it's not correct, he didn't preach his last sermons there with his face
pulled up to a bar of iron while literally crowds and crowds and throngs
of people came.

Can you imagine hearing a message from a desperate man of God with his
lips perched to iron bars and the people bent down in awe to hear this
oracle? His last sermon actually was preached as he was going to the
gallows where he would pay the ultimate price for his testimony. He
would be hung and later he would be drawn and quartered. His hands would
be severed from his body, his head would be severed from his body and it
would be placed as a momentum, as a memorial if you will, to anyone who
dare claim that Christ alone is the head of his church, not the king.

And before he walked up the steps to his gallow, they asked him, is
there any last thing you would like to say? And he said this, I tell you
all now who can hear me that I ascend the steps of this gallow to my
death with less fear and perturbation of soul than e'er I ever ascended
the steps to stand and speak from God's holy desk. Well hey, that'll
start a revival. I think it's clear that before we talk about what
revival is, we should actually define what it's not.

The man who discipled me said this often, he said, Kevin remember
revival is not when the top blows off, it's often when the bottom falls
out. It's not about ecstatic utterances, many of the physical things
that have seemed to accompany some historical revivals over time, rather
it's about an ecstasy, it's about lovesickness, it's about coming to the
place where you care for nothing more than this, oh that I may know him.
I long to be found in his fellowship, I long to experience and to fill
up on those sufferings which are lacking in the body of Christ.

And the false prophet stands and says, take ease, why be so legalistic,
oh why so serious? And we've heard the statistics that will blind you
that just under 2.5 billion human beings walking this planet today do
not glorify God because they've never heard the name of Jesus. Now I
will tell you from the start, I have a hard time with some people's
aspects of revival. Some people they seek revival simply so that they
can walk around holier than thou.

It's all about me, me, me, make it in me, do this in me, bless me, pour
your spirit on me. And I think a true expression of revival is God pour
your spirit through me. God allow me to disappear, that Christ might
have the preeminence in all things.

And I can tell you what revival is, it's when God stamps eternity on
your eyeballs. It's when you lose your earthboundedness, when you look
to live for something greater than yourself. You are not just an
incessant tide pool waiting to be filled with the next wave after the
next wave.

Why should God waste his glory on a vessel that's not broken, that has
no intention of being spilled out, poured out, or broken? I know many of
you know this, but I'll use the analogy anyway. There's a reason we call
it the Dead Sea. Some of you may have been there, I've been there.

It's interesting, you can't really dive deep in the Dead Sea because of
its saline content. It holds you up, not that you'd want to swim in it
anyway, but the interesting thing obviously is that the source of life,
the Galilee flowing into it, continues to flow into it, and yet the Dead
Sea has no outlet. Hence it becomes a continual stagnation.

In the end, I believe that revival comes when we are no longer content
to live in compliance, but instead we desire to live in principle.
Compliance versus principle. What is the constraining thoughts? What are
they of your heart? All through the scripture we see men who chose
rather to live in compliance.

I pray because I should. I go to church because after all it's the
religious thing to do. I go to Sunday school because it makes me look
spiritual.

And the plethora, if you examine and you hold it up before the light of
Christ, what matters in your life? What's the animating principle? What
is it that compels you to do what you do? Why are you here today? Why
are you listening live on the internet? Did you come to see a spectacle?
You're in the right place because to walk before Christ is to be content
to be made a spectacle before the whole world, but by no means will you
see a sideshow. So compliance or principle, there are various instances
where we see it in the Bible. One of those happens to be in Exodus
chapter 4. Exodus chapter 4 is interesting.

We see it's replete with God equipping. In fact, if you look at Exodus
chapter 4 verse 2, God is speaking to Moses and he says, what is in thy
hand? Now that's not the bulk of my text, so I won't stay there or will
be here for several hours more than I'm partitioned. However, what I
would like to draw your attention to is a verse found in Exodus the same
chapter 4 verse 24.

And it came to pass by the way in the inn that the Lord met him and
sought to kill him. Now I have read and reread this. I have looked at
about 20 different commentators and their opinions on it, and I can tell
you they're as varied as the individuals in this room.

There was one common thread, however. Moses had met God, he'd been
called, and he was equipped. But it appears that he was still walking in
compliance rather than principle.

Let's read the rest of the verses. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and
cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at his feet and said, surely
a bloody husband art thou to me. So he, God, let him go.

Then she said, a bloody husband thou art because of the circumcision.
Now we obviously know that in Genesis chapter 17, which obviously would
follow Genesis chapter 15, we see a remarkable thing. It's where God
appears to Abraham and he says, behold, I am thy shield and exceeding
great reward.

And of course we know the Lord came and spoke to him about this after
Genesis 14, which was about the rescue of Lot, and then of course the
gifts that he refused from what the world could offer him. And then God
shows up. He says, behold, I am your shield, your protector, your
defender.

I am your exceeding great reward. And then of course in 17 of Genesis,
we see that Abraham has this encounter with God. It's a dark terror
comes upon him.

He's put to sleep. A sacrifice is there. It's cut or torn in two.

And of course we know that the law of the covenant at the time was the
weaker of the two covenants. In other words, the weakest making the
covenant with the stronger would then proceed to walk through the bloody
mess and the disembowelment of the animals and say, may the Lord do so
unto me if I keep not this covenant. And the wonder of wonders is that
Abraham was put to sleep and one greater than Abraham trod the blood,
thus foreshadowing Christ.

So the greater made a covenant by himself because there was no stronger
authority with which to swear by. And he said to Abraham that he would
set up a covenant of circumcision. And this would be the sign.

And that him and all that are in his household, and Abraham as we know
at the age of 99, was circumcised. And Ishmael was circumcised at the
age of 13. And Isaac was circumcised on the 8th day just as they were
commanded to do.

As the story progresses, we see the children of Israel now brought off
into a land that initially seemed their deliverance and eventually
became their bondage. And then God takes a man. Now the interesting
thing, I believe with all my heart, that when God is looking to do
something in the church, God calls a man.

He doesn't call a method. He doesn't call a machine. He calls a man.

And Moses was that man. He protested. He was not able.

But the interesting thing about this entire dialogue is that we see
before he would head back in Exodus chapter 5 and out there in the Sinai
where he would meet his brother Aaron who was allowed to become his
mouthpiece and Moses would become his God speaking to him. God sought to
kill him. Why go through all of this trouble, calling and equipping and
40 years of fashioning in the desert and all the plethora of things that
God did to prepare a man.

And then as he's walking in obedience to go to what he's been commanded
to do, God seeks to kill him. Surely you must... what waste! Is God so
temperamental? Can he not be trusted? Is he like the Greek demigods who
had the powers of the gods but the disposition of men? No. One thousand
times no.

And what we see is when we look into this story we see the character of
God that he desires for a man to walk in principle and not simply
compliance because one of the things that Moses had had absolutely not
done is he had failed to circumcise his second-born son. And God was
quick to remind him, listen buddy, the only hope of a relationship that
you have between us, you and I, is through a covenant. And I'm a
covenant-keeping God and I want covenant-principled people who are not
simply walking in compliance but are moved by principle.

Little wonder that circumcision was set as the seal to take those most
intimate places and to scar them as a sign and a seal of this covenant.
And so here we see Zipporah stepped in and saved his life. I find it
interesting because one of the things I did do is I looked through all
the different versions.

I looked through all of the newest and the latest commentaries on this
thing is that the one thing that everybody did agree on is that what she
actually did is Zipporah took that flesh, the foreskin of that young son
that she actually circumcised herself, though she disdained the idea.
And what she actually did is she touched it to his feet. I thought that
was interesting because when Moses turned aside and he saw the burning
bush there in the desert, one of the first things he was told is, stop.

Don't. Don't come near here. First take off your shoes.

And it was that tactile part of Moses that was to stand upon holy ground
and experience God. Amazing that that circumcision had to take place and
that that blood was touched to his feet. It's interesting in the West,
our custom is the glory of a man is his head.

That's why I know they don't do it all the time now, but I do and many
do. When you enter into the house of God, what do we always do? We take
our hat off. We uncover our head.

Some of you women believe that you cover your head, but still the
tradition throughout the East is they uncover their feet when they
desire to stand in a holy place. The interesting thing about this is
that God sought to kill Moses because he was not walking in a manner
worthy of the covenant that he was actually purchased under. Now, if you
would flip with me all the way into the New Testament and let's examine
another particular verse that I find quite interesting in light of that.

It's found in the book of Galatians, chapter six, verse 15 in Galatians,
chapter six, verse 15. It says this, and this is the apostle Paul
speaking. He says, for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth
anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.

Paul obviously was a prolific scholar of the Old Testament. Surely he
understood all that had been established in the covenant of
circumcision. And now he tells the new followers of Christ, and in fact,
it was with much contention, because for those of you that know the
history of Galatians, there were scissor-making Christians there.

And what they did is they said, look, you have to live by compliance to
our laws, our rules, our code, our standard, and our way of doing
things. And Paul was saying, no, the greatest of these is principle. So
much so that circumcision or uncircumcision, it avails you little.

Now to spring ahead about 2,000 years, there was a beautiful, brilliant
woman of God named Amy Carmichael that I love to read about her work and
to see how the Lord used her as she was influenced by another man of
God, William Carey. But Amy Carmichael said something that I quote
often. She said this, can we follow the Savior far who have no wound or
scar? Another hymn says, shall he be scorned and spat upon and we no
mocking see? Must others fight to win the prize and sail through bloody
seas while others float to heaven on flowery beds of ease? Are there no
foes for me to fight, must I not stem this flood? Or is this vile world
a friend to help me on to God? Can we follow the Savior far who have no
wound or scar? This is the core of Christianity.

This is identity crisis time. What you love, you cannot help but become
like. Thomas Chalmers, though I'm not that big of a fan of him, did have
one amazing sermon I particularly love.

It was called the expulsive power of a new affection. The expulsive
power of a new affection. Meaning that when a new love comes in, by
virtue of that love, it compels all other lesser things away.

No wonder the hymnist said turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his
wonderful face. What we face today is not a crisis in revival, we face
an identity crisis.

It's that so many who name the name of Christ don't look like him
because it's easier to live in compliance rather than principle. It's
easier to get by than to be consumed, isn't it? I think a clarion call
of Christianity is love me and look like me. So that it's Christ who
works in us both the will and to do of his good pleasure, but Christ is
seen through us as a manifestation of Christ now on this earth.

And so that the way that we live our lives should be done so in a way
that reflects the chief glory on him. And it's why John Baptist could
cry, he must increase and I must decrease. As I said before, I'll say it
again, revival is not when the top blows off, it's often when the bottom
falls out.

It's when either through force of circumstance or through passionate
love, you come to the place where you say, not my will, not my dreams,
not my purposes, not my plans, not my hopes, not my aspirations, not my
money, not my honor, my dignity. I lay it all in the dust. I believe
with all my heart that God will revive anyone who continues to place
Christ in the highest place.

Revival is not a secret. In fact, I normally I choose not to read books
that tell me there's a secret to something in Christianity. That's
almost like the Gnostics and hidden knowledge stuff.

I say, yuck, I'm not interested. I'd rather read about Donald Cargill
with pursed lips up to iron bars, preaching Christ and him crucified any
day. No secret there, just a burned-out love for Christ.

You know, here's the beautiful thing about love. The old Puritan
Proverbs says, love binds where there is no cord and it rules where
there is no sword. Love is the perfect constrainer because it grips
every bit of your pathos, your ethos, all that you are.

Love is never measured. Love says, all that I could give all. And when
it's given all, it cries this, oh that I had more.

All to Jesus, I surrender. And again, to quote the man who discipled me,
I doubt that when we lay in our faces before the Lamb of God in
eternity, that we will look up from our prostrate position and glance an
eye at the Lamb of God who's taken away the sins of the world and say,
you know Jesus, in light of really all that you are, man, I took this
thing way too serious. I doubt any of us will be there to say, oh I gave
so much.

Maybe some of you heard the poem written by Martha Snell Nicholson, a
woman who constantly battled four incurable diseases in her body at one
time. Bedridden, dependent upon her husband that she loved passionately,
and he loved her passionately, and then he died at a young age. She was
left alone.

She wrote a poem called His Plan. His plan for my life, had he had his
way and I see. How I would not yield my will.

Will there be grief in my Savior's eyes? Grief, though he loves me
still. He would have me rich, and yet I stand there poor. Robbed of all
but his grace, while memory runs like a hunted thing.

Down paths I can no longer retrace, and there I shall bow my uncrowned
head, and there I shall cry tears I can no longer shed. Lord of the
years that are left to me, I give them to thy hand. Mold me and make me
after the pattern that thou hast planned.

We see that Moses was uprighted, in fact was threatened with death
because he was walking in compliance rather than principle. He had not
honored the circumcision, and then we see Paul saying, for in Christ
Jesus neither circumcision availeth nor uncircumcision but a new
creature. Now we're gonna jump all the way back into the New Testament
again.

Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 6, because obviously we see
continually throughout the Scriptures that God was continually pointing
to Christ. Everything in the Bible points to Christ, for it's not the
Word of God. So in Deuteronomy 30 verse 6, and first let me give you a
little background on this.

I had come to Christ, I had this expulsive power of a new affection. I
longed to be found in Him and to be lost in Him. The desperate cry
continually of my heart was, oh God, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.

God give me a revelation of your majesty. I want to know you. And I can
tell you after reading, I was actually reading through Wesley's
journals, and I came across a part where he had commented on this verse.

And he said that he had made this his constant prayer. And I can tell
you that for roughly seven years, I prayed this verse over and over and
over and over again. It's Deuteronomy 30 verse 6, it says, and the Lord
your God will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed.

To love the Lord your God with all thine heart, with all thy soul that
thou mayest live. What was so beautiful is that as I continued to pray
that and continued to search the scriptures, I finally one day, and I
can say it was only because the Spirit of God revealed it to me, but I
finally one day found myself in the book of Colossians. If you'd turn
there with me.

The book of Colossians chapter 2, starting at verse 11, because what's
so amazing about God is that He is desirous to always, to constantly
revive His people. Now I believe that revival is found as we gaze upon
Christ and all that He did in His propitiation, the substitutionary
atonement, all that He did to take away the wrath of God that should
have been directed at me, but was directed at Christ, the Lamb of God
instead. And when I gaze upon that and I see the hunks of phlegm hanging
off of His ripped out beard and I see His battered body, I cannot help
but say as Spurgeon said, tell me who is my benefactor that I may know
Him.

And folks, I would just honestly say that if the cry of your heart is
not that I might know my benefactor, who is He who suffered so amazingly
for me, then possibly you've never been born again that I may know Him.
And so here we see in Colossians chapter 2, the colossal intellect of
Paul comes to bear and he begins to explain Christ and the circumcision.
And the Spirit of God speaks through him and it says, in whom, verse 11,
also ye are circumcised, you're circumcised with the circumcision that's
been made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the
flesh by the circumcision of Christ.

Now depending upon which particular theologians you ascribe to and who
it is you follow, I don't care, but I can tell you that there are some
that would say there is a definitive difference starting in about Romans
6.11 and then going on in the fact that for the most part, Paul talks
about sins and then sin. He speaks of sins which are from the flow of
the heart and that the blood of Christ takes care of them, but then
later he speaks of the cross of Christ, not the blood of Christ that
covers them, but the cross of Christ which is where the flow, the fount
is dealt with. So it's not just that we all thank God we have a
covering, therefore let us eat, drink, and be merry.

No, instead it's much more than that. It's not that the cross and the
blood shed from there takes care of your sins, but the cross takes care
of the nature that produces it. So at the heart of the gospel message
it's not simply that I kneel before the cross, it's that I identify with
the cross by getting on it.

Now let me ask you folks, who starts a revolution with these words, come
and die? Who starts a revolution with come and die? And I will add that
that admonition is an injunction and it's the minimum level of ministry,
not the highest. And I'll also add that before Jesus says come and die,
he says come and die. William Penn, founder of Philadelphia,
incidentally my great-great-great-great-whatever-something grandfather,
came over on the good ship welcome with him.

I found that out. I'm not glorying in my pedigree, but he came over. His
name was Cuthbert Hayhurst.

Yes, thank God they didn't pass the name on. But his name was Cuthbert
Hayhurst. He came over on the good ship welcome with William Penn.

They said it was believed that he had the first copy of a concordance in
the United States. I wish I could get my hands on that. But William Penn
wrote a book, which I happen to have, an old copy.

I love the title. The title of William Penn's book is this, very simple
and sublime. No cross, no crown.

There it is, the summation of discipleship. No cross, no crown. Enter ye
into the narrow gate.

And what is the Spirit's apprehension? What is that work that he does in
us in a continuous revival? It is this, that he has circumcised us, not
with hands, but it's a circumcision made without hands, in putting off
the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. You've
been buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him
through the faith of the operation of God. Through the faith of the
operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

And listen to this, the magnum opus of our Christian faith, and you
being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he
quickened together with him, having forgiven all, A-L-L, of your
trespassing. So Paul says that uncircumcision or circumcision matter. We
see obviously it did matter, but what we have in between those
testamental periods obviously is the cross of Christ.

We have a wounded, suffering, bloody Savior, whipped, beaten,
disfigured, torn into by the hatred of man, rejected by his own people,
surrounded by the intellect of the Greeks, the Roman power, of the
military might of the Romans, and the colossal stranglehold of religion
by the Jews. And into that marches a Savior. How beautiful.

Surely revival comes when we gaze long upon him. Surely if you spend any
time walking with him, you have to say as those on the road of Emmaus,
did not our hearts burn within us? Did not our hearts burn within us?
Revival is not working yourselves up into some ecstatic, frantic ecstasy
of the flesh. It's nothing less than the King of Kings and Lord of Lords
coming and saying, may I sit on the throne of your eye.

May I have that place. I have learned through my life, I have much, many
more verses and various things, but I've spent the last 20 years of my
life working overseas in war zones and disaster areas. And one of those
places we worked was Eritrea.

Eritrea used to be part of Ethiopia. They gained their independence in
93, 1993, and it's where I would labor for the next five and a half
years of my life. And I would meet some people there that would change
my life forever.

We initially moved to Eritrea so that we could continue to work in
another section of Sudan where we've been laboring for many years. In
the south, massive persecution of Christians, bloodshed. I went into one
village in Turaleh where 38,000 people had been systematically shot,
women and children.

I walked through a field where I thought were people. As I drove closer,
I found out it was huge vultures and they were eating the children. And
I wept.

I went behind the only tree that was out there and I vomited. And then I
came back and this is what I said, these people are utterly forsaken.
And as beautiful as Jesus is, and as wonderfully as he speaks, he so
gently whispered into my spirit, oh no they're not.

I sent you. Little wonder that Paul said I fill up on those sufferings
which are lacking. From there we would find ourselves laboring in a part
of northeastern Sudan working exclusively among various unreached Muslim
people groups.

In the process of that, the government, while we were there, began to
shut down and close all the evangelical churches in Eritrea. And right
now there are over 2,300 pastors and evangelists locked in shipping
containers, holes in the ground, and old Italian caves. One of those
young men locked in a cave and was in a container with 300 other men,
his name is Binyamin.

Binyamin Sahai. We just call him Benji. My son Hunter led him to Christ
while we were living there and his life was markedly changed from that
day on.

I remember I would go out to the little house he was staying in and I
would find him there laying on his cot and he would have that Bible on
his chest, fall asleep every night digging into it. He would go to the
underground meetings, he would sit in the back and the pastor came and
told me later that he had very rarely seen such a sincere convert. He
would weep at the message.

Benji would end up being arrested on many occasions, but the last we
were thrown out of the country, lost all of our possessions and had to
go, and Benji was arrested and he would remain locked up for three and a
half years. Most of the time was spent in a 40-foot shipping container
with 300 men in it and they had a cut-off piece of a metal barrel that
they would defecate and urinate in and they used to literally seek to be
the one that got to carry out the slush bucket because it gave him a
chance to get some fresh air. Well, the interesting thing is I had
finally given up all hope of ever seeing Benji again.

I thought I'd lost him. Three and a half years, no contact, I know the
suffering and the torture, and by the way, he was given one cup of tea
and two small hard biscuits a day to sustain himself. I ended up one
night, I woke up, I was weeping because of something I had done to Benji
several years before.

Benji was, we had to buy all of our fuel through the black market, there
was no, you couldn't actually purchase fuel at a pump because there
weren't any or you had to get special permission slip from the
government, and so we would actually buy our fuel from Sudan carried
across in barrels, but then we were forced with getting it out of the
barrel, getting into a can, and then of course dumping it into our
truck, and on one particular occasion I had went to Indonesia for the
tsunami. I had flown back, my family was still there in Eritrea, and on
the way I had actually stopped and bought a new pair of shoes. Oh, I
loved those shoes, they were just comfortable.

Slip on, slip off, I'm standing next to the truck, Benji grabs the can,
he goes to feel it, and instead he misses the hole, he dumps the fuel
all over, and of course it spills all over me and my brand-new shoes,
soaked in diesel fuel, and I was angry. I said for crying out loud, what
in the world, I just get these stinking shoes and you, I gotta dump fuel
all over them. I'm being very transparent with you.

What, what broke my heart was that he didn't say anything except he felt
terrible, but later on, because I'd went in, I took the pants off that
were full of diesel, and I took the shoes off, and I'd set them outside
because they stunk, and when I had changed, and I was putting on another
pair of shoes, Benji, by the way, who comes from a very poor family in
Eritrea, he had a new shirt, it was a shirt that we had given him. I
happened to glance out the window, and I saw Benji standing out back,
and he was holding my shoes, and with his brand-new shirt, he was
rubbing that oil, trying to rub it out of his shoes with his new shirt.
Maybe four years later, I wake up in the night, and I am utterly in
abhorrence of myself, because now, for three and a half years, I don't
know if he's even alive, and I realize I never told him I was sorry.

I never said, oh God, forgive me, Benji, I'm sorry, and so I got up, and
I was weeping, and I was praying, God have mercy on him, please spare
him, and I began to write in my journal. I said the number one thing I'm
going to say when I see Benji again is, one, I love you, and two,
forgive me for being such a wretch, I'm so sorry. I penned those words
in my journal, and I prayed that I would be able to see his face again,
and within one month, I got a little scratchy, broken English email from
Ethiopia, and it was Benji.

I said, I'm alive. I've escaped across the border, past the minefields
and the military. I made it past hyenas and the croc-infested river, and
immediately told my wife, we rejoiced, we jumped up and down, and I
booked a flight.

I flew to Ethiopia, and I found him. When I did, he had typhus, malaria,
and severe malnutrition. God, in his mercy, brought me there in time.

We literally, I ended up on one day carrying him into the hospital,
where he was admitted into the emergency room, and treated for the
various diseases and severe malnutrition, and then, as he was feeling
better, we were able to sit down and glean some of his testimony, and
the first thing I did is, I said, Benji, I have to share something with
you. I said, I don't know if you remember, and I shared with him that
story, and I wept, and I begged his forgiveness. Well, there was an
Ethiopian who spoke to Grinya, and Amharic, and English, and was
translating for me, so that even though Benji understood some English,
he could understand exactly what I was trying to say, and he began to
weep, and do you know what he said? Oh, all you've ever done is loved
me.

I never thought twice about that. You are my father. I'm alive today
because you cared, and revival came to my heart, to the humility of a
broken, bruised, and beaten vessel.

I would spend the next many nights sitting on my bed while I watched
over him, and he would struggle through the night. I remember every
night he'd be crying out, and he'd be putting up his arms to, like,
protect himself, and I found out that he was basically, he was beaten
consistently and continually on many occasions, and then, one day, he
showed me the scar that was around his neck, and the scar was from where
we had actually purchased a cross for him with a leather strap, and one
day, when they were taunting and mocking him, one of the guards ripped
it from his neck, and when they did, it sliced both sections of the back
of his neck. Benji said that in the container, I learned so much about
Jesus.

I said, what did you learn? He said, I learned that when you have two
shirts, you give one to somebody who doesn't have any. I learned that
when someone was sick, even though you only got two pieces of bread, you
saved that, and you gave it to someone else who was sicker, and then,
the summation of a revival is, he said, in the prison, we learned how to
love. Now, for some of us, it may be that we will have Pentecost in a
prison camp, but I can assure you that does not have to be that way,
because the Lord is desirous always to touch his people.

Benji's favorite verse while he was in prison was Nahum 1 7. The Lord is
good. He is a shelter, and the Lord knows them that are healed. That was
his promise.

I woke up. I, by the way, I don't know where I'm doing with my time. I
can't actually see the clock.

I think I almost have to finish, correct? It's almost 3. I'm going to
start talking faster. I woke up one night, and this was what was
happening to me as God was working revival in my heart. I woke up, and I
was utterly consumed with what a wretch I was, how religious I'd become,
how bound in compliance rather than principle I was living.

And I prayed this, but later on, I ended up writing it down. My prayer
was, God, save me from myself. And I said this, God, save me from the
love of myself.

God, save me from the love of praise. God, save me from serving you so
that I can be rewarded by men. God, save me from preaching what others
should do while not doing it myself.

God, save me from the hypocrisy and gossip that I often call prayer and
intersection. God, save me from ministering in your name but not calling
on your name every day. God, save me from work for you and not
worshiping towards you.

God, save me from talking about love for you but not taking time with
you. God, save me from titles and entitlements. God, save me from
pleasures that build the flesh but deny your spirit.

God, save me from serving you to be well thought of by others. God, save
me from loving danger more than loving your peace. God, save me from
griping and complaining about simple things and then talking about
sacrifice.

God, save me from using the Bible to make my point so I can thereby
prove that others are wrong. God, save me from being right all the time.
God, save me from a sharp tongue and a backbiting spirit and passing it
off as quick-wittedness.

God, save me from pride in what I do instead of glorying in my weakness.
God, save me from leading by command rather than by example. God, save
me from giving to others while I was keeping the best for myself.

God, save me from serving you and taking the glory and the rewards. God,
save me from using you to further my ministry and my agenda. God, save
me from praying only for my sins, myself, my work, my ministry, my
stuff, my life.

God, save me from preaching from my heart and not from yours. God, save
me from seeking the lost as a notch on my belt or a bragging point at a
church. God, save me from trying to be the most spiritual so that others
around me can be put down.

God, save me from the pecking order and using leadership as a place of
advantage rather than service to others. God, save me from favoring
people based upon what they can give or what they bring in my life. God,
save me from loving those who love me while flippantly passing by those
who have offended me.

There's too many to lead. One thing I've learned is that I don't know
everything. But if we're willing to walk in humility and brokenness, the
Bible tells us in Psalms 51 verse 17 that that's a heart that God will
never despise.

God bless you.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/fscID73cuGE.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/kevin-turner/a-revival-of-humility/
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