Where are the Elijahs of God?

Where are the Elijahs of God?

By Leonard Ravenhill

The prophet in his day is fully accepted of God and totally rejected by men. Years back, Dr. Gregory Mantle was right when he said, "No man can be fully accepted until he is totally rejected." The prophet of the Lord is aware of both these experiences. They are his "brand name." The group, challenged by the prophet because they are smug and comfortably insulated from a perishing world in their warm but untested theology, is not likely to vote him "Man of the year" when he refers to them as habituates of the synagogue of Satan!

 

The prophet comes to set up that which is upset. His work is to call into line those who are out of line! He is unpopular because he opposes the popular in morality and spirituality. In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet!

 

The function of the prophet, as Austin-Sparks once said, "has almost always been that of recovery." The prophet is God's detective seeking for a lost treasure. The degree of his effectiveness is determined by his measure of unpopularity. Compromise is not known to him. He has no price tags. He is totally "otherworldly."

 

He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonably hostile. He marches to another drummer! He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration. He is a "seer" who comes to lead the blind. He lives in the heights of God and comes into the valley with a "thus saith the Lord." He shares some of the foreknowledge of God and so is aware of impending judgment. He lives in "splendid isolation." He is forthright and outright, but he claims no birthright. His message is "repent, be reconciled to God or else...!" His prophecies are parried. His truth brings torment, but his voice is never void. He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow.

 

He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead! He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with epitaphs when dead. He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few "make the grade" in his class. He is friendless while living and famous when dead. He is against the establishment in ministry; then he is established as a saint by posterity.

 

He eats daily the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of Life to those who listen. He walks before men for days but has walked before God for years. He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation. He announces, pronounces, and denounces! He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire. He talks to men about God. He carries the lamp of truth amongst heretics while he is lampooned by men. He faces God before he faces men, but he is self-effacing. He hides with God in the secret place, but he has nothing to hide in the marketplace.

 

He is naturally sensitive but supernaturally spiritual. He has passion, purpose and pugnacity. He is ordained of God but disdained by men. Our national need at this hour is not that the dollar recover its strength, or that we save face over the Watergate affair, or that we find the answer to the ecology problem.

 

We need a God-sent prophet! I am bombarded with talk or letters about the coming shortages in our national life: bread, fuel, energy. I read between the lines from people not practiced in scaring folk. They feel that the "seven years of plenty" are over for us. The "seven years of famine" are ahead. But the greatest famine of all in this nation at this given moment is a FAMINE OF THE HEARING OF THE WORDS OF GOD (Amos 8:11). Millions have been spent on evangelism in the last twenty-five years. Hundreds of gospel messages streak through the air over the nation every day. Crusades have been held; healing meetings have made a vital contribution. "Come-outers" have "come out" and settled, too, without a nation-shaking revival. Organizers we have. Skilled preachers abound. Multi-million dollar Christian organizations straddle the nation. BUT where, oh where, is the prophet? Where are the incandescent men fresh from the holy place? Where is the Moses to plead in fasting before the holiness of the Lord for our moldy morality, our political perfidy, and sour and sick spirituality?

 

GOD'S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH. They will come. The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history. There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet.

 

The man with a terrible earnestness! The man totally otherworldly! The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable!

 

Let him be as plain as John the Baptist. Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and stagnant "churchianity." Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle. Let him, too, say and live, "This ONE thing I do." Let him reject ecclesiastical favors. Let him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself- righteous, nonself- glorying, nonself-promoting. Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move men to God.

 

Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has received the order of the day. Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism. Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision no man in this century has seen. God send us this Moses to lead us from the wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of lust bite us and where enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon. God have mercy! Send us PROPHETS!

 

"Where are the ELIJAHS OF GOD?"

 

To the question, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" we answer, "Where He has always been - on the throne!" But where are the Elijahs of God? We know Elijah was "a man of like passions as we are," but alas! We are not men of like prayer as he was. One praying man stands as a majority with God! Today God is bypassing men - not because they are too ignorant, but because they are too self-sufficient.

 

Brethren, our abilities are our handicaps, and our talents our stumbling blocks! Out of obscurity, Elijah came on to the Old Testament stage, a full-grown man. Queen Jezebel, that daughter of hell, had routed the priests of God and replaced them with groves to false deities. Darkness covered the land and gross darkness the people, and they were drinking iniquity like water. Every day the land, fouled with heathen temples and idolatrous rites, saw smoke curling from a thousand cruel altars.

 

Elijah lived with God. He thought about the nation's sin like God; he grieved over sin like God; he spoke against sin like God. He was all passion in his prayers and passionate in his denunciation of evil in the land. He had no smooth preaching. Passion fired his preaching, and his words were on the hearts of men as molten metal on their flesh. Brethren, if we will do God's work in God's way, at God's time, with God's power, we shall have God's blessing and the devil's curses. When God opens the windows of heaven to bless us, the devil will open the doors of hell to blast us. God's smile means the devil's frown!

 

Mere preachers may help anybody and hurt nobody; but prophets will stir everybody and madden somebody. The preacher may go with the crowd; the prophet goes against it. A man freed, fired, and filled with God will be branded unpatriotic because he speaks against his nation's sins; unkind because his tongue is a two-edged sword; unbalanced because the weight of preaching opinion is against him.

 

Preachers make pulpits famous; prophets make prisons famous. The preacher will be heralded; the prophet hounded. Ah! brother preachers, we love the old saints, missionaries, martyrs, reformers: our Luthers, Bunyans, Wesleys, Asburys, etc. We will write their biographies, reverence their memories, frame their epitaphs, and build their monuments. We will do anything except imitate them. We cherish the last drop of their blood, but watch carefully the first drop of our own!

 

Oh, my ministering brethren! Much of our praying is but giving God advice. Our praying is discolored with ambition, either for ourselves or for our denomination. Perish the thought! Our goal must be God alone. It is His honor that is defiled, His blessed Son who is ignored, His laws broken, His name profaned, His book forgotten, His house made a circus of social efforts.

 

Does God ever need more patience with His people than when they are "praying"? We tell Him what to do and then how to do it. We pass judgments and make appreciations in our prayers. In short, we do everything except pray! No Bible school can teach us this art. What Bible school has "prayer" on its curriculum? The most important thing a man can study is the prayer part of the book. But where is this taught? Let us strip off the last bandage and declare that many of our presidents and teachers do not pray, shed no tears, know no travail. Can they teach what they do not know? The man who can get believers to praying would, under God, usher in the greatest revival that the world has ever known.

 

There is no fault in God. He is able. God "is able to do according to the power that worketh in us." God's problem today is not communism, nor yet Romanism, nor liberalism, nor modernism. God's problem is - dead fundamentalism! "So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth." - Rev. 3:16

 

Sin today is both glamorized and popularized, thrown into the ear by radio, thrown into the eye by television, and splashed on popular magazine covers. Churchgoers, sermon-sick and teaching-tired, leave the meeting as they entered it - visionless and passionless!

 

Oh God, give this perishing generation ten thousand John the Baptists! Just as Moses could not mistake the sight of the burning bush, so a nation could not mistake the sight of a burning man!

 

God meets fire with fire. John the Baptist was a new man with a new message. As a man accused of murder hears the dread cry of the judge, "Guilty!" and pales at it, so the crowd heard John's cry, "Repent!" until it rang down the corridors of their minds, stirred memory, bowed the conscience and brought them terror-stricken to repentance and baptism!

 

After Pentecost, the onslaught of Peter, fresh from his fiery baptism of the Spirit, shook the crowd until as one man they cried out: "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Imagine someone telling these sin-stricken men, "Just sign a card! Attend church regularly! Pay your tithes!" No! A thousand times no!

 

"Oh, my God! If in our cultivated unbelief and our theological twilight and our spiritual powerlessness, we have grieved and are continuing to grieve Thy Holy Spirit, then in mercy spew us out of Thy mouth! If Thou cannot do something with us and through us, then please God, do something without us! Bypass us, and take up a people who have not yet known Thee!"

 

 

http://www.ravenhill.org

The Great Revival in Charleston, South Carolina, 1857

 The Great Revival of 1857 in Charleston, South Carolina

In 1857, black and white believers met at the Anson Street Presbyterian Church in Charleston, South Carolina for prayer for revival.  They fell on their faces, repented and then cried out to God for the salvation of loved ones and friends.  They were desperate for a move of God in their city.  All of a sudden, the heavens were rent over Charleston.  God came down!  Revival fire swept through the church and then the city.  Shock waves went out from there to New York City, where Jeremiah Lamphier was praying in like manner at a Fulton Street church.  Revival then swept New York City and then the nation.  Within one year, one million souls were won to Christ.  Churches were full and overflowing.  A church in Beaufort, South Carolina received 400 new converts in three days!!  
Believers in Charleston are praying for the reopening of this "old well of revival" in their city.  God IS going to answer!!

REPENTANCE IS OUR ONLY HOPE! by David Wilkerson

"THE REJECTION OF THE CALL TO REPENTANCE IN THE LAST DAYS"

"This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it."  Isaiah 30:15


We are living at the Time of the End.  Prophecies are being fulfilled with rapidity!  The Great Falling Away is upon us.  Heaven is calling the church to repent.  It is the time of the "five wise and five foolish virgins."  God has given us the answer of the hour...."in repentance and rest is your salvation."  Sadly, the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled before our eyes.  Few are heeding the call to repent!

The Great Apostasy in The Last Days - David Wilkerson

The Great Apostasy - David Wilkerson

"Let no one deceive you by any means, for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin,  is revealed, the son of perdition,  who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God".
2Thes.2:3-4 

Paul warned that in the time prior to the coming of Jesus Christ that it would be perilous times.  He warned of an apostate church that would reject holiness, judgment and righteousness.  It would be a time of a "feel good" Christianity, living the "good life," prosperity and success.  There would be a turning away from scriptural teachings of sacrifice, laying down your life and suffering for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The seers would be told "Don't see visions!"  Of the prophets it would be demanded, "Prophesy illusions!"  Of the teachers it would be mandated, "Tickle our ears!"  We have entered that dark time.

David Wilkerson, one of the few prophets of God in our time, exposes the darkness that has invaded the church.  It is time for true believers to wake up.  It is the time of great deception that was prophesied would come upon the earth.  We must stand for and preach the truth.  We must expose the darkness.  The coming of the Lord is nigh.

Elderly woman witnesses to man trying to rob her

"92 Year Old Christian Witnesses to Man Trying to Rob Her!!"

A normal shopping trip to Walmart took a strange life-threatening turn one morning for an elderly Christian woman.  The outcome was unbelieveable!!

Two Young Men Sell Themselves Into Slavery to Win the Lost!

Two Young Moravians Sell Selves Into Slavery to Win the Lost!!

Two young Moravian men in their early twenties became heavily burdened for the souls of Africans being sold into slavery. After approaching a West Indies plantation owner for permission to set up a mission outreach at his plantation, they were sorely disappointed.  The plantation owner wanted nothing to do with Christianity and he strictly forbade any attempt to evangelize his slaves.  So determined were they to reach the lost, the two young Moravians sold themselves into slavery and went to the dock to be shipped with new slaves to the planation.  What a passion for lost souls that they were willing to pay the ultimate price!  They counted their lives as nothing for the sake of the Master.  What price are we willing to pay to reach lost humanity?

REVIVAL BREAKS OUT IN INDIA!!!!

REVIVAL FIRE FALLS ON INDIA!!!



In 1906, a great revival swept India.  Thousands were brought into the Kingdom of God.  Revival fire is falling again in India.  God is keeping His promise "I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh.  Your sons and daughters will prophesy." 

THE GREAT REVIVAL AT GROUND ZERO IN NEW YORK, 1857

THE GREAT REVIVAL AT GROUND ZERO IN NEW YORK, 1857



In the shadow of Ground Zero in New York City,  150 years before the world-shaking 9/11 event took place, one man invited others to join him in prayer at a church on Fulton Street.  Within months, 10,000 were standing outside of the church waiting to get into pray.  A Great Awakening ensued and swept the nation.  Over 1 million received salvation.  That is the equivalent of 10 million being saved today.  This Awakening then swept the world!  Passengers on ships coming into New York harbor fell under the Presence of the Holy Spirit while the ships were 20 miles off the coast of America.  Hundreds experienced salvation.  This was one of the Greatest Awakenings in American history!  It was called the "Prayer Revival."

Delia Knox Returns Home to NY - WALKING!!!!

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      Delia Knox Returns Home to NY - WALKING!!!! 

(newscast on WIVB Television)

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - Her life was changed forever by a drunk driver. Now, for the first time in nearly a quarter-century, she's walking up to her mother's house in Buffalo.
There sure was a lot of joy on Jersey Street on Friday, and not a dry eye to be seen. It was a moving moment for all to see a once wheelchair-bound woman walk into the arms of her mother.
Amelia Roman has waited 23 years for this moment. With family and friends by her side, she was about to see her daughter, Delia, walking home. Others were just as excited.
Milagros Fancher said, "I can't wait. I can't wait to see what God was able to do. Nothing is impossible to God."
For more than two decades, gospel singer Delia Roman Knox was the woman in the wheelchair. At 25, she was paralyzed from the waist down after being hit by a drunk driver. Now, the Buffalo native, who resides in Alabama, can be seen all over YouTube. Eight weeks ago at a Christian revival, she shocked everyone when she got out of her wheelchair and walked.
Since then, she couldn't wait to return to WNY to see her parents. Our camera rolled as she arrived and took her first step outside the family home.
Delia said, "That was one of my things. I wanted to walk up the stairs and see my mom and dad who instilled faith in me and I thank God they're alive to see this."
Carlos Benitez said, "It's just beautiful. I can't believe it, you know?"
"Our faith is God does miraculous things, and he's done it here," said Casimiro Rodriguez.
Delia claims she had no idea that on the night she was wheeled into the revival she'd leave on two feet.
"I'd stay away from revivals because I've been pulled, plopped and dropped. This time I walked; I wasn't dropped," said Delia.

Miracle?

Delia said, "All I know is I couldn't walk, and now I walk."
"My house is a house of miracles! I tell you, there is only one way, the Lord," said Amelia.
Delia plans to share her story with the world in the weeks to come. But she felt it was important to share it with all of you first.

 

Leading Rabbi in Jerusalem's Shocking Vision - Messiah's Name Revealed

"Leading Rabbi in Jerusalem's Shocking Vision - Messiah's Name Revealed"

A leading Jewish rabbi and scholar in Jerusalem had an amazing vision.  It was revealed to Him the name of the Messiah.  He wrote it down and sealed it.  After his death in 2007, the letter was opened and read.  Astonishment and shock waves swept across Israel when it was revealed what the rabbi wrote.  This video is a must view!!

CHARACTER ASSASSINATION

The following is from anarkiesmusings.blogspot.com

Thanks so much to Richard Lawry for permission to post this! 

 

    Character Assassination

Character assassination is an attempt to tarnish a person's reputation. It may involve exaggeration or manipulation of facts to present an untrue picture of the person.

Such acts are often difficult to reverse or rectify, and the process is likened to a literal assassination. The damage can last a lifetime or, for historical figures, for many centuries after their death.

In practice, character assassination may involve double speak, spreading of rumors, innuendo or deliberate misinformation on topics relating to the subject's morals, integrity, and reputation. It may involve spinning information that is technically true, but that is presented in a misleading manner or is presented without the necessary context.

It seems like character assassination has become commonplace. Politics seems like nothing but character assassination. Each political candidate or pundit tries to smear the opposing side.

In Leviticus 19:16 God tells his people “Do not spread slanderous gossip among your people”.


Although gossip and character assassination are commonplace, they are not something a Christian should be involved in.

A number of years ago George Harrison wrote a song about gossip titled The Devil’s Radio. Here are some of the lyrics of the song.

Gossip
I heard it in the night
Words that thoughtless speak
Like vultures swooping down below
On the devil's radio
It's all across our lives
Like a weed it's spread
'till nothing else has space to grow
The devil's radio
Gossip
In reality, gossip is telling and/or listening to something uncomplimentary about another with the wrong intent or purpose. It can be true or it can be false, but the intent is the same.

Obviously this is a serious issue; but there is a type of character assassination that is even more serious; the assassination of God’s character.

The first time we find character assassination in the Bible is in Genesis Chapter 3. There Satan, disguised as beautiful serpent, tells Eve half truths and lies and gets her to believe them instead of what God has told her.


Satan invented character assassination. We know that he used it in heaven. He was so good at it that he convinced one third of the angels to believe him instead of God. It is the method that he uses to separate people from God. We want to make sure that we aren’t working for him by giving people the wrong idea about God’s character. It can happen to even the best Christians.

Even the great prophet Moses fell into this trap of Satan’s. We find the story in Numbers chapter 20. For many years God has been providing water to the Children of Israel. Can you imagine that many people basically camping in a dry wilderness? The only way for them to have water would be by the miraculous grace of God. One day there was no water for the congregation. The Bible tells us they gathered together against Moses and Aaron. The people contended with Moses and spoke, saying: “If only we had died when our brethren died before the Lord! Why have you brought up the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our animals should die here?

Moses and Aaron prayed to God and asked Him for guidance. God told them, “Take the rod; you and your brother Aaron gather the congregation together. Speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will yield its water; thus you shall bring water for them out of the rock, and give drink to the congregation and their animals.”

So Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock; and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?” Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their animals drank.


It looks like the story has a happy ending. I’m sure that Moses and Aaron were pleased. Even though they had to endure a bit of a tongue lashing, so were the Children of Israel. They now had plenty to drink. But God wasn’t happy.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”

That seems quite harsh. Moses and Aaron had given 40 years of their lives leading this ungrateful people to the Promised Land. The one thing they really wanted was to actually see the Children of Israel in the Promised Land. Why was God so upset?

In Psalms 106:32,33 the Bible says “The people also made the LORD angry at Meribah, and Moses was in trouble because of them. The people turned against the Spirit of God, so Moses spoke without stopping to think”.
Moses spoke without stopping to think. He spoke for God words that God had not asked Him to speak. He had followed his own course of action instead of what God had asked Him to do. He had misrepresented God’s character.

If we claim to speak for God, we must not misrepresent the kind of God he is. There is nothing more serious than to picture God as he does not wish to be seen. We must be careful with how we picture God to others.


Do you portray a harsh demanding God, or a loving God? Are you presenting a picture of God that will please Him? We want to make sure that we aren’t a part of the character assassination of God.

1 John 4:16-19 tells us, “And so we know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love. God is love. Those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. This is how love is made perfect in us: that we can be without fear on the day God judges us, because in this world we are like him. Where God's love is, there is no fear, because God's perfect love drives out fear. It is punishment that makes a person fear, so love is not made perfect in the person who fears. We love because God first loved us”.

NEW Delia Knox walking unassisted at Bay Of The Holy Spirit Revival - paralyzed for 22 Years!!!

Della Knox sustained critical injuries to her spine due to an automobile accident 22 years ago.  It left her totally paralyzed from the waist down.  At the Bay of the Holy Spirit revival in Mobile, Alabama, she began experiencing feeling returning to her legs.  She said that it felt like "hands" touching her legs.  All of a sudden she stood up and with assistance, walked for the first time in 22 years.  This video shows her walking unassisted!!  Revival is here folks!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mighty Revival Account: Asbury College 1970

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"Mighty Revival Account: Asbury College 1970"
It was a typical morning chapel service at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky in 1970.  The service followed the normal pattern until God stepped down!  This video gives record of the historic events of that morning.  Revival had come to Asbury College and before it was over, it swept the nation and the world!

Patterns of Spiritual Awakenings (How to Know an Awakening is Near)

Patterns of Spiritual Awakenings

(How to Know an Awakening is Near)

 

"Spiritual awakenings manifest patterns that are similar, often strikingly so. While all of the following elements may be present in each instance, for the most part awakenings progress through a cycle whose phases include these various aspects of God's working."

1. Awakenings are usually preceded by a time of spiritual depression, apathy and gross sin, in which a majority of Christians are hardly different from secular society, and the churches seem to be asleep. The causes of each decline differ widely, but when the prophetic voice and moral leadership of the Church has been stilled for some time, social evils are usually rampant.

2. An individual or small groups of God's people become conscious of their sins and backslidden condition, and vow to forsake all that is displeasing to God. Christians recall past outpourings of God's grace and power, and long to see them again. When histories of awakenings have been written in later years, it has been occasionally discovered that individuals at great distances and completely unknown to each other had, prior to the awakening, been praying simultaneously to the same end!

3. As some Christians begin to yearn for a manifestation of God's power, a leader or leaders arise with prophetic insights into the causes and remedies of the problems, and a new awareness of the holy and pure character of the Lord is present. This standard of holiness exposes the degeneracy of the age and stimulates a striving after holiness by God's people. The leaders find that their eagerness for God's moving is shared by many who have been waiting for God to act, and who will rise to follow.

4. The awakening of Christians occurs: many understand and take part in a higher spiritual life. Evangelism of the unsaved may or may not accompany this renewal of Christians. (Salvation of the lost occurs when Christians are restored to image of Christ and holiness. This great transformation in Christians leads to a stirring in the community. God "comes down" into the lives of Christians and then "moves out" into the community.

5. An awakening may be God's means of preparing and strengthening His people for future challenges or trials. Throughout history, renewal has often come before persecutions and severe trials. (The First Great Awakening came prior to the American Revolution. The Third Great Awakening occurred a few years before the Civil War. Azusa Street occurred before a great earthquake in California and before World War I."

Do you see these patterns at work among God's people today? The answer is YES ! The more I see, hear, read and discover from others and from the Lord, I believe we are at the third pattern or stage. The "old wells" of revival are about to be reopened, "fallen mantles" are being picked up and "new fountains" are about to burst forth!

(Excerpts from Christian History magazine}

God Smashes a Moonshiner's Still

"GOD SMASHES A MOONSHINER'S STILL" Among the most remarkable eccentric, itinerant, Methodist preachers that ever lived in the New River Valley, was Robert Sawyers Sheffey, who was born in the county of Wythe, Virginia, July 4, 1820, and died in Giles County, Virginia, in 1902. He was a son of Henry Sheffey, of Wythe, and came into the New River Valley some time in 1859, where he married for his second wife a Miss Stafford in what is commonly known as Irish settlement, in Giles County, where Mr. Sheffey located.  Mr. Sheffey declared war on the devil, sin and especially the moonshine trade, which was destroying lives, families and communities.

For reasons of his own, Robert Sheffey never united with the  Methodist conference, but continued throughout his career as a Methodist circuit rider, going from place to place, and wheresoever his inclinations led him. He was eccentric beyond description. That he was a pious devout Christian and Godly man was never doubted. He was a man of wonderful faith in God, and was usually most eloquent in public prayer. When troubles and difficulties surrounded him his oft repeated statement was, "I'll go and talk to the Lord about it."

One thing about this good man which was most remarkable, that his prayers for specific things were not only not in vain, but what he asked the Lord for, he in some way or some how always seemed to receive it. So often were his prayers answered, and his highest hopes and aspirations gratified, that people who knew him well and were disposed to do evil things were frequently alarmed for fear he would call down vengeance from heaven upon their guilty heads, and many believed that if he should ask the Lord to smite them with pestilence or death it would be done. The eccentricities of this man led numbers of people to express doubts as to his sanity. Some of these expressions reached Mr. Sheffey, and he often publicly repeated what he had heard, and his only comment was, "Would to the Lord they were crazy on the same subject that I am."
 

Many and interesting are the stories and anecdotes told of this preacher and of his conduct; some of which will here be related, and from which it will appear that while his eccentricities often appear therein, yet the great and strong faith of the man is also exhibited. Many years ago, Mr. Sheffey had a regular preaching place on East River in Mercer County,  West Virginia, near the residence of Mr. Anderson Tiller, at whose house, he made his stopping place, and where he was always carefully looked after and entertained. It was known that Mr. Sheffey was exceedingly fond of sweet things, and especially of honey. On an occasion, when on a preaching tour, he went to fill his appointment on East River, and became as was usual the guest of his brother, Tiller. Being on a Sunday morning and late in the summer season and while at the breakfast table, Mr. Tiller remarked to Mr. Sheffey that he regretted that he had no honey for him, that his bees had done no good, had not swarmed and that he feared they had frozen out in the winter or that some insect had destroyed them, and that the season was too far spent to have any swarms. Mr. Sheffey arose from the table and went down upon his knees, and told the Lord that the brother's bees had not swarmed, and that there was no honey in the house, and he implored the Lord to have the bees swarm. Scarcely had his petition ceased when the swarms came with such rapidity that Mr. Tiller was unable to procure rapidly enough sufficient gums to save the swarms. The truth of the incident is vouched for by the best people in the neighborhood of where it occurred.


At a meeting being held by Mr. Sheffey at Jordan's Chapel, now in Summers County,  West Virginia, Dr. Bray, a physician in the neighborhood together with his wife, were present at Sunday morning service and had with them a nursing infant child, which was taken suddenly ill about the close of the service. The mother became alarmed and grief stricken about the condition of her child, and in her hysteria she cried out that her child was dying. A large number of people were present and gathered around the mother and child supposed to be dying, when Mr. Sheffey appeared and being informed of the cause of the trouble, said, "Brother give me the little child," and taking it in his arms he fell upon his knees, and in a most earnest prayer to God asked for the life to the little child and that it might be restored to its mother. Arising from his position on the ground, he handed the child to its father, remarking, "here brother is your little child well and all right;" and so it was!!


Mr. Sheffey had a right good vein of humor in his makeup, and he occasionally exercised that faculty to the discomfiture of people. Some thirty years ago, there lived on the upper waters of Brush Creek, a Christian gentleman by the name of Robert Karr, a member of the Methodist Church, at whose house Mr. Sheffey was entertained, when on his preaching tours in that neighborhood. He had a protracted service in the neighborhood of Mr. Karr, which had continued some weeks, and which Mr. Karr had not attended, and whose non-attendance Mr.Sheffey had observed, and taking his brother Karr to task about his want of interest in the meeting, inquired why he did not attend. Mr. Karr replied that he had a good reason, and being pressed by Mr. Sheffey to give his reason, he finally said, "Well, I don't just exactly like your way;" whereupon Mr. Sheffey with a ha! ha! said, "Neither does the Devil."


On the occasion last mentioned or a similar one, while Mr. Sheffey was holding a meeting at Mr. Karr's, early one Sunday morning, a young man rode up to the house and delivered to Mr. Sheffey a message from his wife that his little son, Eddy, was very sick, and that the doctors had said he could not live and for him to come home at once. Mr. Sheffey made no response to the message, but went off a distance to some high granite boulders on the top of the highest of which he went to the Lord in prayer, and continued to pray until the time had arrived for him to meet his congregation at the church. On reaching the pulpit, he related to his congregation the message he had received, and then said, "I have talked to the Lord about this, and Eddy is not going to die." Eddy Sheffey lived and became a bright, intelligent, useful and honored citizen.


Mr. Sheffey had wonderful faith in God's providences, his care for his people in providing for their wants, physical as well as spiritual. It is told of him that on one occasion he met a man in the road on a very cold day, and that the man had on no socks, and that Mr. Sheffey observing this took off his and gave them to the man. After riding some distance he stopped at a house to warm his feet, and that the lady of the house said to him that she had knit for him some nice pairs of socks which she wished to present him. Another thing may be mentioned of this man, and that was the tender care of his horse and of other animals. He could not bear to see them suffer, not even a bug if turned on its back, and he has been known to dismount from his horse and turn it over. If he found what appeared to him to be a hungry animal or dog, he would give it his lunch rather than eat it himself. The story is told of him and another preacher who were out in some wild mountain district, that on leaving the house where they had been entertained, the woman put a lunch in Mr. Sheffey's saddle-bags telling them that they were not likely to meet with their dinner that day, and that she had provided a lunch that they might not suffer from hunger. Off the preachers went on along the mountain pathway during the morning hours and until about noon, proposed to eat the lunch. Mr. Sheffey informed him that he had no lunch, that he had just met two very hungry looking dogs to which he had given the lunch. 

"Sheffey Wages War Against the Moonshiners"

If there was a man beyond any other that believed that the whiskey traffic was one of the Devil's strongholds it was Mr. Sheffey. He assailed this traffic when opportunity offered and often in public prayed for its overthrow and destruction. He was often appealed to by good people to pray the Lord to remove still-houses and liquor manufactures. On the upper waters of the Bluestone, many years ago, was a whiskey distillery operated by a man and his son. Mr. Sheffey stopped in the neighborhood at the home of a good Methodist family. The good woman of the house told him of this distillery, and that it was ruining and wrecking the lives of many of the young men in the neighborhood, and requested him to pray for its removal, which he promised to do. The lady inquired "how long will it be before we may expect our prayers to be answered;" "about twelve months," was his reply; and sure enough within the twelve months the distillery was closed up, and the owner and his son in jail on charge of defrauding the government.


On another occasion he was on Wolf Creek, near Rocky Gap, when he was informed by the mother of a family with whom he was stopping, of the existence of a distillery in the neighborhood that was proving a great evil and requested Mr. Sheffey to pray for its removal. Mr. Sheffey then and there went to the Lord in prayer, and asked Him to destroy the evil, and if necessary send fire from Heaven to burn it up, and that very night an old dry tree near the distillery took fire, fell on the shanty and destroyed the whole thing. The whole neighborhood firmly believed Sheffey's prayer brought down that fire, which rid the neighborhood of the evil.

During a revival meeting, many of the moonshiners had gathered in the back of the church.   They had come to see if Sheffey would dare to speak against them and their vile trade.  Knowing that they were there, Sheffey rose and stood behind the pulpit.  He said, "I know that there are moonshiners here tonight.  God knows who you are!  I have prayed a prayer concerning you.  In that prayer, I asked God to do one of three things tonight....that you repent and get saved, or that you will leave town, or else that He will strike you dead!  The choice is yours!" Knowing that Sheffey had the reputation of getting exactly what he prayed for, several moonshiners ran to the altar and the rest ran out of the door and left town that very night!

Traveling through a community, Brother Sheffey came across a distillery. Approaching the owner, the old circuit rider warned him to shut the business down or else God would cause an oak tree to fall upon the buildings and smash it to pieces.  The wicked owner laughed him to scorn and said, "Old man, there isn't an oak tree within miles of here!  What can God do about that!  Get out and leave me alone!"   That very night, a violent storm hit that region.  A powerful wind came down upon a mountaintop miles away, uprooted a large oak tree and carried it a great distance and dropped it right on top of the distillery completely destroying all of it!

Mr. Sheffey's hostility and open expression against the liquor traffic and the traffickers, often brought down upon him, not only the curses and hatred of these people, but once at least, a pounding upon his head. He was preaching in Bland County, and during the service was interrupted by some crude young men under the influence of alcoholic spirits, which led to their severe censure and arraignment by the preacher.   This offended and enraged them so that they took position at the outside of the church door, and as Mr. Sheffey went out they clubbed and beat him severely. These people were indicted in the Court of Bland County, and Mr. Sheffey summoned as a witness for the Commonwealth. He did not appear, and compulsory process was taken against him, and on his appearance in Court he endeavored to avoid testifying. The young men were convicted, when Mr. Sheffey with tears in his eyes, and a prayer on his lips implored the court to allow them to go unpunished, that they knew not what they did; that he had forgiven them, that he had asked the Lord to forgive them, and now asked the Court to forgive them, which in a measure it did.

Once while traveling to Wytheville, Virginia, he noticed a low hanging limb with a large hornets nest on the outskirts of the town.  As he entered the town, his attention was drawn to numerous men coming in and out of a very large house.  He approached a young man coming out of the house and  inquired what was the cause of the comings and goings at this home.  With vulgar sarcasm, the young man remarked that Sheffey must be rather stupid to not know that it was a house of prostitution.  After the young man left, Sheffey hailed two young boys to come to him.  He offered them a fifty cent piece for their help.  He told them of the hornets nest on the edge of town.  He asked them to carefully get the nest, plug the opening and bring it to him.  A little while later, the young boys came with the nest.  After paying them their reward, he walked up a side alley and gently opened a window on the first floor of the home.  He cast the hornets nest into the room and shut the window.  Smashing to the floor, the nest released a swarm of angry hornets.  All of a sudden, a panicked mob of men and women burst through the front and back doors of the house.  Sheffey had cleaned house!!

As has already been stated, Mr. Sheffey went to the Lord about everything he did, even about small things, which sometimes brought him into ridicule by some classes of people, but that did not in the least deter him. He believed that the Lord controlled the actions of animals as well as men, and in verification and illustration thereof the following story is told by a gentleman living a few miles south of Pearisburg, Virginia. Mr. Sheffey stopped at his house over night, and by Mr. Sheffey's direction his horse was turned on pasture. Mr. Sheffey, having an appointment for the next day and anxious to get off early, requested the gentleman to have his horse ready for him. The man went out very early to get the horse which he was unable to do, even summoning help, still the horse would not allow himself to be caught, nor would he be driven into the stable yard or lot. Finally the man gave up the effort to secure the horse, went to the house and informed Mr. Sheffey of the situation, and he went out with the man into the field where the horse was grazing, and requested the man to wait until he told the Lord about it. Down upon his knees he went and told the Lord of the inability of the man to bridle the horse and requested that He put it into the mind of the horse to stand and be bridled, and on rising from his knees he said to the man "you can now bridle the horse," which he immediately did. Many other such things occurred in the history of this man, which for want of space cannot here be related.

Whatever may be said of this peculiar man and his eccentricities,  he was a man who walked with and knew his God.  The brilliance of his itinerant ministry lit up the dark hollows, valleys and mountaintops of early Appalachia and  covered and filled them with the glorious light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Hello shook when he came to town.  He died in peace with God and man, and all who knew him revere his memory.  His mantle of ministry did not fall to the ground when he died.  Elijah's mantle fell upon Elisha at Elijah's departure.  Sheffey's mantle has been kept on hold until an  Elisha Generation would come along and pick it up.  That generation has come.  It is time to pick up this fallen mantle and finish what this old circuit rider started long ago!

A Prophetic Word for the African American Believer

A Prophetic Word for the African American Believer

by Michael Edds

A few years ago while living near the beautiful mountain village of Summersville, West Virginia, I had a most extraordinary dream. The dream was divided into four parts. In the first part, I was leaving my position as the Headmaster of a private school. Secondly, one of my teachers was elevated to my former position. Thirdly, the board chairman who had lived in the community all of her life was moving away. In the fourth part of the dream, I was preaching to a large African American church on the subject, "You Have Settled on the Other Side of the Jordan." 

In the dream, this great Black church had accomplished much and possessed a great national ministry. However, the Lord said that they had not reached the fulfillment of their divine destiny. As I preached, the powerful presence of the Lord descended in that mighty church. He began to give revelation and direction concerning the immense destiny that He had planned for them. The church exploded in worship and praise. I awakened from the dream.

The first three parts of the dream happened within a few months. I resigned from my position, the teacher I saw in the dream became the interim Head of School, and the board chairman and her husband sold their family business and left town. However, the fourth part of the dream did not immediately happen. In fact, I did not understand this portion of the dream. Five years passed as I continually pondered the dream in my heart.

Not long ago, I was invited to conduct a grant writing workshop and preach at a large African American church in Chicago. I still did not understand the meaning of the message, "You Have Settled On the Other Side of the Jordan" but the Lord directed me to preach this message. As I studied the Word, the incredible prophetic meaning of the message in the dream was revealed.

Two and a half tribes of the Israelites found the rich farm and grazing lands to the east of the Jordan River to their liking. The tribes of Gad, Reuben, and half of the large tribe of Manasseh decided to settle on the "other side" of the Jordan and thus not cross over into the promised land. Moses and Joshua had given them permission to do so but with one major requirement, their warriors must led the battle in taking the Promised Land. Joshua chapter 3 records the miraculous parting of the flooded Jordan. The priests led the procession on a dry, divine path made through the flood waters. True to their agreement, 40,000 warriors of the two and a half tribes took the lead in the battle. Their divine destiny was to assume the reigns of leadership in battle and bring the rest of the tribes into their promised destinies and lands. What a great mantle of ministry was laid upon Gad, Reuben and half of Manasseh!

The Lord began to reveal the divine destiny that He has for HIS African American people. I was given an article written by Susan Castell which stunned me. The prophetic word given to her concerning African American believers was identical to what the Lord was revealing to me. She wrote: " You have come to this land for such a time as this. It is now time to lay aside the weight of racial hatred and the sin of unforgiveness which so readily clings to and entangles you. It is now time to forget what lies behind and to reach forth to what lies ahead. It is now time to arise and seek Me for the fulfillment of your divine destiny.

Just as the survival of ancient Egypt and Israel rested on the shoulders of Joseph (a man sold into slavery by his brothers and carried away to a foreign land), so does the very survival of this great nation of America rest upon you. It is now time to embrace My plan and to allow Me to birth within you the heart and the attitude of Joseph who was able to forgive his brothers and those who had enslaved and imprisoned him. It is now time to embrace the cross of My Son and become a great blessing in the land of your captivity.

Even as man has seemingly succeeded in humbling you to the very lowest of places, so will I exalt you to the very highest place, even to the very throne of My Glory. As you humble yourselves under My mighty hand and allow the mind and heart of Christ to be formed in you, you will experience supernatural healing and deliverance from the many and deep wounds inflicted by those who have degraded, despised and humiliated you. As you identify with My Son and you begin to cry out: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do", you will enter into a new dimension of My Grace and Glory, and you will receive the revelation of Jesus Christ and His Resurrection power which your hearts have been hungering for.

It is now time to understand that all history, including Black History, is HIS STORY. It is now time to lift up your eyes above man's agenda and catch the vision of My agenda. It is now time to declare with Joseph: "As for you, you thought evil against me, but G-d meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive..." (Gen. 50:20)

Arise my people, my Joseph company, whom I have brought from afar and planted in this land for such a time as this. Look unto Me and I will unveil the meaning of your history. Look unto Me and I will reveal the mystery of your many and long sufferings. I am the L-rd your G-d, and besides Me, there is no other. Look unto Me and be healed of the wounds of your captivity. Look unto Me and I will make you free to be my instruments of healing and deliverance in this land of your divine destiny."

The fullness of the prophetic meaning of the message, "Settling on the Other Side of the Jordan," came into full focus. The Great Awakening that is soon to burst upon this world as a final witness will be led by a "Joseph Company" that God has been preparing for a long time. This Awakening will bring God's holy remnant together as a Bride without spot or wrinkle. Divisions, separations, and walls will collapse as the Church comes together to fulfill her final destiny. Each tribe that composes the Church has a promised destiny, a specific divine mission to fulfill. Leading the way to bring all tribes of believers into that fulfillment will be the African American believer. Just like Gad, Reuben and Manasseh, a mantle of leadership will rest upon them. God is an excellent bookkeeper. All of the weary years and long generations of blood, sweat, tears, unpaid slave wages and rejection WILL BE PAID IN FULL! It will not come from the White House, the Supreme Court or from Congress. It will come from the hand of the mighty God! Just like Joseph, they will be suddenly ushered from obscurity to the fullness of divinely appointed leadership. What man meant for evil, God will turn into good for the saving of many lives. The mantle of leadership will be laid upon them by a divine Hand. They will lead the rest of us into our appointed destinies. I believe that the Holy Spirit is stirring within them now. Divine gifts within that have been given for this prophetic hour are now being activated and released. Understanding of the long night of their suffering is being revealed to them. The heart of Joseph is reaching perfection within them. God calls them to fulfill their destiny. The Jordan has parted before them. They lead the way for the rest of the Body of Christ to follow. Pay day has finally come!

The final part of the dream came to pass as I preached that message that Sunday morning in Chicago. Walking behind the pulpit that morning, the anointing of the Lord fell and the message thundered out.  The audience heard God's prophetic word spoken that day.  The Holy Spirit rained down!

Isn't it incredibly ironic that God would reveal and speak this message through a white man, a descendant of slave owners from the South? Isaiah 60:10 states, "The sons of your oppressors will come bowing before you. All who despised you will bow at your feet." God fulfilled the words of the prophet on the day I preached the message, "You Have Settled on the Other Side of the Jordan." May God soon fulfill His prophetic word to these divinely called leaders of the Coming Great Awakening.

"O Africa, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not plead thy cause, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." - Lyman Beecher

Revival Has Broken out in Manchester, Kentucky - Incredible!!

1857 Prayer Revival in America

The 1857 PRAYER REVIVAL in AMERICA

extracts by Wesley Duewal.

A quiet, zealous forty-six-year-old businessman in New York was 
appointed on July 1,1857 , as a missionary in downtown New York 
at the Dutch Church. Jeremiah Lamphier had been converted in 
1842 in Broadway Tabernacle, Finney's church that was built in 1836.

Lamphier felt led by God to start a noon-time weekly prayer meeting 
in which business people could meet for prayer. Anyone could 
attend, for a few minutes or for the entire hour. Prayers were to 
be comparatively brief. Lamphier's group met on the third floor of 
the old North Dutch Reformed Church on Fulton Street in New York. 
Lamphier printed some handbills announcing the prayer meetings 
with the title, "How Often Should I Pray?" 

The first day, September 23, 1857, Lamphier prayed alone for half 
an hour. But by the end of the hour, six men from at least four 
denominational backgrounds joined him. The next Wednesday 
there were twenty. On October 7 there were nearly forty. The 
meeting was so blessed that they decided to meet daily. One
week later there were over one hundred present, including many 
unsaved who were convicted by the Holy Spirit of their sin.

Within one month pastors who had attended the noon prayer 
meetings in Fulton Street started morning prayer meetings in 
their own churches. Soon the places where the meetings were 
held were overcrowded. Men and women, young and old of all 
denominations met and prayed together without distinctions. The 
meetings abounded with love for Christ, love for fellow Christians, 
love for prayer, and love of witnessing. Those in attendance felt 
an awesome sense of God's presence. They prayed for specific 
people, expected answers, and obtained answers.

Newspapers began to report on the meetings and the unusual spirit 
of prayer that was evident. Within three months similar meetings 
had sprung up across America. Thousands began praying in these 
services and in their own homes.... By the end of March over six 
thousand people met daily in prayer gatherings in New York City. 

Meetings began in February in Philadelphia. Soon Jayne's Hall 
was overfilled, and meetings were held at noon each day in public 
halls, concert halls, fire stations, houses, and tents. The whole 
city exuded a spirit of prayer.

Almost simultaneously noon prayer meetings sprang up all across 
America in Boston, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Richmond, 
Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans, Vicksburg, Memphis, 
St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, and in a multitude of 
other cities, towns, and in rural areas. By the end of the fourth 
month, prayer fervor burned intensely across the nation. It was an
awesome but glorious demonstration of the sovereign working of 
the Holy Spirit and the eager obedience of God's people.

INVISIBLE CLOUD of GOD'S PRESENCE

A canopy of holy and awesome revival influence - in reality the 
presence of the Holy Spirit - seemed to hang like an invisible cloud 
over many parts of the United States, especially over the eastern 
seaboard. At times this cloud of God's presence even seemed to 
extend out to sea. Those on ships approaching the east coast at 
times felt a solemn, holy influence, even one hundred miles away,
without even knowing what was happening in America.

Revival began aboard one ship before it reached the coast. People 
on board began to feel the presence of God and a sense of their 
own sinfulness. The Holy Spirit convicted them, and they began 
to pray. As the ship neared the harbor, the captain signaled, 
"Send a minister." Another small commercial ship arrived in port 
with the captain, and every member of the crew converted in the
last 150 miles. Ship after ship arrived with the same story: both 
passengers and crew were suddenly convicted of sin and turned 
to Christ before they reached the American coast.

HOMES, SHOPS, FIELDS and CHURCHES

Reports came in of hundreds being converted in prayer meetings, 
private homes, workshops, and fields. Often the doors of businesses 
held signs reading, "Closed, will reopen at the close of the prayer 
meeting." Five prayer meetings took place daily in Washington, 
D.C. Five thousand or so attended daily services in the Academy 
of Music Hall.

In Philadelphia, Jayne's Hall removed partitions and added space 
for six thousand people to attend daily meetings.... The services 
consisted of simple prayer, confession, exhortation, and singing. 
But it was "so earnest, so solemn, the silence. ..so awful, the 
singing. ..so over-powering" that the meetings were unforgettable. 
A canvas tent was erected for outdoor meetings, and it immediately 
filled with people. In four months' time, a total of 150,000 people 
attended the ministry in the tent, with many conversions..... the 
best estimates are that 6.6 percent of the entire population of the 
United States was converted during the revival.

Arctic Fire - Revival Fire Falls

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Arctic Fire - Revival Fire Falls

A community in the Arctic Circle was in great trouble.  Illegal drugs, divorce, alcoholism, sexual abuse, violence and murder were ripping a people apart.  The Anglican Church met to pray.  They wept and interceded for God to come and come He did!  This video records the actual awesome events of that never to be forgotten prayer meeting.

Revival In Haiti - A Call To Fasting And Prayer

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 "Revival In Haiti - A Call To Fasting And Prayer"

A nation reals and rocks from a devastating earthquake and tsunami.  The infrastructure is shattered.  People are homeless, hungry, and many have perished.  God's people rally and call the nation to pray.  Over 1 million gathered in the capital for days of national repentance and prayer.