By Greg Gordon

It all started with a dusty box of old cassette tapes being shipped to me in the mail. Opening it I carefully put a pencil in and turned the tape taut and put it carefully in the cassette player. The voice of Leonard Ravenhill was scratchy but intelligible.

Soon, I was immersed in a new world of the past, hearing an old revivalist lament for revival like I never heard before.  This started an over 20-year journey, now compiling sermons on the website SermonIndex, which is the largest collection of free revival sermons on the internet. 

After listening to thousands of sermons on revival I was asked to compile a list of the top sermons from all my listening.  Below is a list of the top 10 sermons on revival(audio).  The descriptions of these sermon messages (below) are in no particular order, and I pray this selection can minister to some in a very unique way.

1) Ten Shekels and a Shirt by Paris Reidhead

“I didn’t send you to Africa for the sake of the heathen. I sent you to Africa for My sake. They deserved hell but I love them and I endured the agonies of hell for them. I didn’t send you out there for them. I sent you out there for Me. Do I not deserve the reward of My suffering? Don’t I deserve those for whom I died?”

Paris Reidhead preaches what could be called one of the most influential sermons of the 20th century. The real point of this sermon is an indictment of individuals and organizations practising humanism behind a mask of Christianity! "This sermon should be preached on a regular basis in every church in America!”

2) Judgment Seat of Christ by Leonard Ravenhill

“But you know if God should stamp eternity or even judgment on our eyeballs, or if you’d like on the fleshy table of our hearts I am quite convinced we’d be a very, very different tribe of people, God’s people, in the world today. We live too much in time, we’re too earth bound. We see as other men see, we think as other men think. We invest our time as the world invests it. We're supposed to be a different breed of people. I believe that the church of Jesus Christ needs a new revelation of the majesty of God. We’re all going to stand one day, can you imagine it- at the judgment seat of Christ to give an account for the deeds done in the body. This is what- this is the King of kings, and He’s the Judge of judges, and it’s the Tribunal of tribunals, and there’s no court of appeal after it. The verdict is final.”

This is a powerful message on the Judgement Seat of Christ. This message will challenge you to question the way you are living as a Christian today compared to the eternal reality that we are going to go before God one day to give an account of our life.

3) God Uses Foolish Things by Jackie Pullinger

"You do not need to be cured. You need to be slain.”

Throughout this beautiful and anointed message, Jackie shares many wonderful testimonies of the work of the Holy Spirit saving, healing and delivering drug addicts, prostitutes and criminals in the Wall City in Hong Kong. She speaks about the revival in China, and how teenage girls leave their homes and walk from village to village sharing Jesus. They come back two years later and multitudes have accepted Christ. These girls have never been to a seminar or a worship service. They simply give everything they have away. Jackie also witnesses about brothers and sisters coming out of decades in prison with broken bodies many times, but rejoicing and shining in their Saviour. She emphasizes that the revival in China is not facilitated by visual aids, life changing tapes, videos of the month or Christian magazines. It comes through the Holy Spirit using "just a few people who aren't very educated, without microphones, who loved their lives not unto death - that's it." In this way, God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise (1 Corinthians 1:26-27). Jesus came to preach the good news to the poor (Luke 4:18). Jackie explains how the poor are often able to hear the gospel much quicker than an educated person, because they can hear spiritually. This is why the poor in spirit are blessed (Matthew 5:3). Jackie Pullinger emphasizes that men and women are saved through the Spirit of God, not through man's reasoning. She concludes with a call to die and a profound challenge: "His glory will fall if you go out with nothing except a broken heart and some precious seed, and I suppose we have all got that.”

4) A Call to Anguish by David Wilkerson

“We've held on to our religious rhetoric and our revival talk but we've become so passive. All true passion is born out of anguish. All true passion for Christ comes out of a baptism of anguish.”

David Wilkerson speaks about the perversion in America and the sinfulness of the church. He points out how the church today is married to the world. People are seeking places where smooth messages are being preached. Christians no longer want to hear about God's coming wrath and the necessary correction of their lives. This broken and God-fearing man denounces the passivity of God's people. Christians are blind to the lukewarmness and the sinful mixture that has crept in little by little. He warns how the spirit of blindness is the least recognizable thing. He calls believers to leave their passivity: "You have lost your fight. That's all the devil wants to do is get the fight out of you and kill it. So you won't labor in prayer anymore, you won't weep before God anymore. You can sit and watch television and your family goes to hell. If you are expecting somebody else to win your family or to do this work you are mistaken." Through this very deep, challenging and anointed message, God calls believers to a baptism of anguish and to fervently pray for the recovery of a nation.

5) Calling On The Name Of The Lord by Jim Cymbala

“Does the Bible ever say anywhere from Genesis to Revelation, ‘My house shall be called a house of preaching’? Does it ever say, ‘My house shall be called a house of music’? Of course not. The Bible does say, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’. Preaching, music, the reading of the Word – these things are fine; I believe in and practice all of them. But they must never override prayer as the defining mark of God’s dwelling. The honest truth is that I have seen God do more in people’s lives during ten minutes of real prayer than in ten of my sermons.”

His clear-cut call to really understanding the true nature of Christian life is that it must be lived in prayer. He shows from the beginning of the bible to the end God has gathered apart a people to Himself that would 'call upon His name'. Be challanged, convicted and changed as you listen to this message, it has been a turning point for my life and many others also that I personally know. I believe this message was preached at Jack Hayford's church. The quality isn't the best and the second half of the sermon is missing but its worth the listen.

6) Rivers of Living Water by Bill McLeod

“When I ask the Lord to fill me with His Holy Spirit I am, of course, relinquishing all rights to the control of my life for that day.”

Bill McCleod shares with a burdened heart on the subject of personal revival in the Christian's life. He shares much Scripture on the command of God to be filled with the Spirit and goes through many Scriptures on reasons for us grieving and limiting God. He ends with a very powerful story of how we can stop the work of God in our lifes. He ends the sermon in tears over the state of many that are hindering God working in their lifes. A very sobering a heart-searching message.

7) A Grain of Wheat by Major Ian Thomas

“To be in Christ -- that is redemption; but for Christ to be in you -- that is sanctification!”

Where in the life of Christ was one hour of more significance than another? Throughout the New Testament we read of occasions when Jesus' enemies tried to kill him, but were prevented because "His hour had not yet come." What is this "hour" of which the Scriptures speak? Major Ian Thomas says, "It is the hour without which the Lord Jesus would have been born to live in vain." He uses John 12:24, in several translations, to describe the hour on which our salvation rests.

8) And They Crucified Him by Art Katz

“The preaching that is power comes when a man abandons himself, and will not lean on his own expertise or ability.”

Empty entertainment/worship sung by pretty people - Doctrinally-correct sermons devoid of power -Sunday-only Christian lives barely distinguishable from the world. All these and many more ills are symptoms of a disease that Art clearly identifies in this message. It's such a fundamental thing, our understanding of the cross. It's an indictment of our lives and the current impotence of the church. In the final analysis, unless we know Christ and Him crucified, our knowledge of God will be false.

9) When God Stepped Down from Heaven by Duncan Campbell

“If you want revival, get right with God. If you are not prepared to bring the ‘last piece,’ for God's sake, stop talking about revival, you're talking and praying is but the laughingstock of devils. It is about time we got into the grips of reality. Are we thirsty?”

Listen to this first-hand account of the Lewis Revival during the early 1950s. Duncan Campbell was God's instrument in this extraordinary awakening. In this tape Campbell recounts point-by-point this three-year movement of the Holy Spirit over the Hebrides Islands. Thousands were converted, conviction overwhelmed villages, outward sin disappeared, and prayer meetings were packed! Your heart will be thrilled as you listen to this tape about this heaven-sent revival in Lewis.

10) The Power Of Weeping by Michael Youssef

“Only in the Cross of Christ will we receive power when we are powerless. We will find strength when we are weak. We will experience hope when our situation is hopeless. Only in the Cross is there peace for our troubled hearts.”

Michael Youssef shares this powerful sermon at the 2007 National Broadcasters Association. There is a deep burden and weeping over the state of America and Evangelism in this message. Oh that we would hear it all with "ears that can hear" what the Spirit is saying to the Churches. This is a urgent appeal from the heart of God over the declension and need of a genuine biblical revival in our generation.

Greg Gordon is the founder of SermonIndex.net, which was established in 2002. Millions of audio sermons have been distributed through this world-wide ministry. Gordon has also been involved in organizing over 12 international historic revival conference events where thousands of lives were impacted.