Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.
your revelation i'd like the disciples on the road to omas lord they said then on our heart burns while he talked to us and opened to us the scriptures lord your presence is real your holy spirit of wisdom and revelation you give lord you reveal yourself to your people lord it's not it's not just intellectual it's not just academic lord it is a revelation of jesus christ spirit to spirit lord and we're thankful god that there can be a real relationship with you through the blood of jesus christ that there can be a real encounter a real presence a real infilling of the holy spirit a real refreshing and reviving and renewing of the holy ghost lord a born-again experience and then after that lord the baptism of the holy spirit then after that god anointing and revival can break out lord we're grateful to you that you are the living god you're the living god you move your spirit moves you do new things you pour out your spirit you bring in waves of revival and power and glory you show yourself strong to the people your people that are hungry and thirsty you promised lord those who were hungry and thirsty you would feel and so lord today we ask you make us more hungry more thirsty to see an outpouring of your holy spirit to see a revival that brings thousands of people to salvation and healing and deliverance and repentance lord we pray to see a harvest of souls in our day in our time lord in this place in this region as well as through our nation we pray for revival even though god we know judgment is coming lord you had the prophet habakkuk pray in the midst of your wrath in the midst of those days remember mercy and revive your work i believe you're going to do it lord i pray this in jesus name on the lord thy god i hear the voices of my people i hear your song i hear your praises i feel your love stay at my feet i will give you the desires of your heart i will bring in the harvest through you i will send you into the streets and you will bring those who are lost our word is try like seven times in the fire we will not fear you in this last days trust me i'm with you i will not leave you nor forsake you i'm the lord
thy god and i call you to be here just trust me my people brian coming soon praise the lord praise your name father praise your name great god now we receive that lord we know god that you have called us for a purpose you've called this church for a purpose god you have called us to be a light a witness and a harvest a harvester rather in this last time lord we will fulfill that purpose in jesus name amen you may be seated this morning if you have your bibles i want you to turn to acts chapter 3. acts chapter three can you hear me i have preached on this passage before i've talked about it but i'm going to delve into this a little more because there are times and seasons of revival times of seasons of judgment when it comes to god times of season when it seems like god is withdrawn himself and then times when he draws near the times that he withdraws himself or he feels distant or not doing a lot of things is the testing time you know kevin shared this scripture he felt like the lord wanted him to share this scripture wednesday night when we were in prayer meeting but this is you can just write this one down proverbs 13 and verse 12. it says this it said hope deferred makes the heart sick but the desire when it comes is a tree of life now what's interesting about that is proverbs 11 30 says he that when it's souls is wise right and it talks about the tree of life again and there's so many things that the lord's been stirring in my heart this morning and this weekend but i know that it's easy when
you know the spirit of god has spoken to you and that god has promised something and you're hungry to see a move of god and people get saved in miracles and things and when you're going through a period when very little that is happening it's easy to get discouraged because hope deferred or put off delayed extended it says makes the heart sick but the desire and the desire i'm talking about the desire for god to save people to be that tree of life that desire when it does come is wonderful now i want to share this because a lot of you a lot of you've never even seen revival you've never been in a revival a real one i'm not talking about three days that the church put on the church sign we're having revival for this three days or for this week that's not a revival special meetings people might get saved or healed that's great but that's not a revival you know this past week i went to visit a couple that i haven't seen since 19 94 i guess it was and i led them to the lord back in 1989 led them to the lord the baptism of the holy spirit but before i led this couple to the lord i had led their teenage son to the lord and even baptized him in water and it was a it was a powerful time and what reminded me of this because they they sat there and of course this woman had been healed she had been deaf and she was she's the one that had been healed back in that time period and we were talking about all they brought it up they were talking about how all the young people that just just were getting saved left and right in that time period um and and i and i was thinking back on that you know 1987 1988 1989 even 1990 was for in my life it was a period of experiencing revival i didn't really know it then until i look back on it now but i saw so many miracles i saw so many people get saved it was amazing it was like very little effort very little preaching witnessing teaching and people would just get saved they would start weeping and crying and give their hearts to jesus and then right after they get baptized the holy spirit speaking in other tongues or we we saw so many healings and miracles and and a lot of young people saved and then the then their parents would come and get saved and that's what happened
in this in this family's life and it was it was powerful i mean the presence of god was powerful when you can be at village mall in auburn witnessing to a group of teenagers three boys and six girls and the power and presence of god fall on that witnessing time and i watched six teenage girls sitting on the sidewalk at the front door of village mall in auburn as i preached the gospel to them very simply i watched the presence of god and the holy spirit convict them and all of them were tears running down their faces and all of them prayed and received jesus right there on the front step as people were coming and going in and out the door and i just remember i look back on that and i look back on you know the short season that i took to be a youth pastor at a church and how it went from 20 or so to 60 in two months how i didn't even give altar calls and people were getting saved mandy came to some of those meetings mandy and a bunch of her friends would pile in my car that seated maybe five people and i think one time we had nine or ten people in that car sitting on top i mean it was great just to get them to use me and they wanted to go they used to come get me i mean these all these teenagers that got saved back then would come get me and say can we go out on a friday night can we go out to your prayer house and pray you don't see that happen anymore no we've got to entertain them but he used to get me said can we go out to pray and then after we prayed for a while they would say lay hands on us we know the holy spirit will come upon us and i'd lay hands on them and they'd all hit the floor in the power of god saw demons manifest and cast out i remember a young man who was played on these names todd also brook played on the beulah basketball team decided to come to a youth meeting one night he had just broken his ankle the doctors had said you're done for the season came to a youth meeting that night we got through with our youth meeting at the end of it i said do you believe jesus will heal you and they hadn't put a permanent cast on that he had just gone to the emergency room that day and he he said they just put a splint on it i said you believe jesus will heal you he said yeah i said well take that off take that splint off and i said i'm going to pray these
scriptures over you and i said when we pray in jesus name i'm going to get up and run out the door you follow behind me now he's one of the stars of the butyl basketball team back in those days below high school guess what i said in jesus name i pray for this ankle to be healed we believe it god in jesus name and i got up and took off running out the door and the next thing i knew i turned around i mean i went through the living room out the front door into the yard and i turned around and he was behind me completely healed went back and played the entire season god gave a witness to those young people he was real and powerful that was this is what i'm talking about you will know when you're in a season of revival but that comes only because you're hungry because you're praying for it and fasting for it and believing for it and you're positioned in the right place at the right time where god wants you or you're not going to have it you got to remember the reason i was where i was at that time seeing all those young people get saved and all those miracles happen in their and even some of their parents come to know jesus as their savior the reason is because i obeyed the spirit of god and was where i was supposed to be doing what i was supposed to be doing i had plans in 1987 to go back to troy state and get a degree i had plans there are many times that the lord would say i remember i was in arkansas oklahoma with my dad helping the girl who was in satanism helping disciple her and i remember i mean you know how often you say that you know a witch is you've led a witch to the lord i mean you hear what i'm saying god was moving the holy spirit was doing things way beyond my ability to do anything about it or to make it happen right and i mean i look back on that and i'm like you know i'm in oklahoma and i remember i was in oklahoma and i had plans to stay in oklahoma and do a bunch of things there in in oklahoma and then over in arkansas i wasn't far from i was kind of close to missouri and all right in there and i remember one night i was praying i was in in my my dad's house he had a house in muskogee oklahoma at the time and i was praying and the spirit of god came all over me and he said these words to me very clearly he said will you do whatever i tell you to do whenever i tell you to do it when i said yes lord no he said i mean really will you surrender your will and your plans
at any time to do my will and i remember when he impressed it on me that strongly i remember i just broke down in tears and said lord my life is yours now i don't call the shots anymore it's i give it to you whatever you say to do and i remember he spoke to me he said go back to opelika right now i had no plans and when i came back that's when my friends who i used to drink and smoked up with that's when they got saved led them to jesus led them into the baptism the holy spirit speaking another tongue discipled them took them out on the street witnessing and started training them how to share their faith with other people it was a fun time didn't always have enough money didn't always have a vehicle didn't always have a place to live but god was moving amen there are times and seasons and i remember as i came out of that about 1991 things began to shift and began to change for me 92 93 94 beginning of 95 was kind of a difficult time a dry time kind of a a searching again things everything changed but then of course 1995 the brownsville revival hit and so i began to go in and i didn't hear about it until about almost all the way through 95 toward the to almost into 96 is when i first heard about it we didn't have the internet fully everybody back then so you just heard things the old fashioned way you know the word of mouth and i think the reason i heard about it is because i had a family member that lived in pensacola and they brought me a newspaper because the revival had made the newspaper and i thought to myself and i heard that steve hill was the evangelist and i'd been in steve hill meetings before in the 80s and i knew he was a true man of god and a true evangelist with a true heart for god trained by david wilson and i said you know what this this sounds like the real thing to me i'm going down there and of course then i found out of course a friend of mine that i had known at the church in montgomery had become the the children's pastor at brownsville so i i went down there and and the and i walked in the doors the first time and i remembered there was that same presence of god that had brought revival that i'd seen in the in the late 80s was now back again but even in a greater measure at the brownsville revival and i know there's a lot of critics of the brownsville revival and i don't care i
was there i mean there's no one in this church he was there but i was there night after night after night after night i mean i would go to pensacola and get a hotel room and i'd stay the whole week and then come home and preach on sunday morning many times i would go down there on saturday night and come back and get home at three o'clock in the morning and get up at six to get ready to do church but the power of god i'm gonna tell you the anointing of the holy spirit once you you get in a revival that anointing that greater anointing gets on you and and flows through you and i remember going to the revival and just sitting in the services and the presence of god being in there and the fear of god and watching people break down in tears in their seats seeing a line around the church people waiting to get in the church from all over the world the presence of god outside the line going for two to three blocks around the church watching unsaved and backslidden people the moment the altar call was given run run to the front weeping their eyes out i was in the middle of it all the first that first year of 96 that i was there i was one of the pastors who would counsel with people after they came to the altar and prayed with with the evangelist i'm not talking about i i met with john kilpatrick the pastor during that time i met with lindell i met with dr michael brown during that time i want to say i was deeply involved and receiving and i would go places and i remember when i would go into the prison you want to talk about revival glory and power coming on you i would go to tuttweiler prison every last sunday night of the month and 150 women in their white jumpsuits would pack into that room and the presence of god would come in and god would give me a fiery evangelistic message and i would preach that i would give an altar call and i would watch the same thing i would feel the same thing and i would watch the same thing happen when at brownsville i would see them run crying weeping repenting praying the sinner's prayer repenting of sin weeping their eyes out brokenhearted dealing with their sins confessing jesus as lord believing in him and the presence of god was so strong in there there were times i could hardly stand up as i went down praying laying hands on them after they had repented and gotten saved or maybe there were prodigals coming home and the power of god i want to tell you would fall in that
place i remember the assistant chaplains walking around beside me having to go sit down say i can't even stand up anymore i can't i can't even be near you because of the glory and presence of god see there's some fake stuff out there there's some phony goofy stuff going on in the charismatic pentecostal church but i'm here to tell you folks we serve a living god his presence is real and he can manifest his power and his glory so strong that you can't even stand up to minister oh yes he can make you drunk in the holy ghost oh yes he can bring his fear and trembling on you oh yes he can bring you to tears in one minute and bring you to joy the next i'm sorry i don't care if there's counterfeit i don't care if there's fake i don't care if there's hyped up phony stuff there's a real god with a real presence and a real power his name is jesus and his spirit is the holy spirit of the living god and he wants to refresh and revive and touch us and anoint us to do great things to win the lost heal the sick cast out demons and see revival i'm telling you god told me in those meetings at brownsville and times i would go preach i remember preaching i would get invited to evangel temple assembly of god there was an old lady thing mary woodall she was in her 80s she did a tuesday morning meeting every week miracle service that would be 50 60 people there every tuesday morning i remember her inviting me to speak in that and i remember the lord would always usually when i'd speak somewhere he said tell them about the revival and how i touched you i remember one day i was there it was the first time that i was there after the brownsville revival started remember the lord i'm getting ready to speak i mean i'm in a coat and tie and everything that's the way it was back in the 90s i'm getting ready to speak simple things and i felt the lord's presence come in the room and he said take your shoes off you're standing on holy ground right now i slipped my shoes off and walked up to preach and hardly got two words out of my mouth for presence of god came down and all these people are weeping and crying simple things
see i feel it now just talking to you because this scripture this is what i want to read here peter stood up this is acts chapter 3. we will start reading at verse 11 and as the lame man which was healed held peter and john all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called solomon's greatly wandering and peter saw it he answered unto the people you men of israel why marvel yet this or why look ye so earnestly on us as though through our own power or holiness we have made this man to walk the god of abraham of isaac and of jacob the god of our fathers have glorified his son jesus whom you delivered up and denied in him in the presence of pilate when he was determined to let him go but she denied the holy one and the just and desired a murderer to be granted to you and killed the prince of life whom god raised from the dead whereof we are witnesses and his name the name of jesus and his name and through faith in his name has made this man strong whom you see and know yea the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all all now brethren i walk not that through ignorance you did it as did your rulers but those things which god has before showed by the mouth of all his prophets that christ should suffer he hath so fulfilled and then he says this repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the lord and he shall send jesus christ which before was preached unto you now he says here that there will be times of refreshing the word refreshing there could also be translated revival and the word time there is the word in greek queros not kronos kronos is the measurement of time the word k rose means an appointed time everybody say appointed time god has appointed times of revival did you hear what i said and that's what this scripture says times of refreshing again could be translated keros appointed times in god's divine plan where he brings revival by his presence now that's bible i don't care what goofy bethel church does i don't care what goofy ihop does i
don't care what the goofy charismatics do that's why i had you read the azusa street revival and i hope everybody's read it and if you hadn't you better hurry up because you've had extended time you need to read this because let me just tell you god is taking us to one of those appointed times of revival for our church for this region for our purpose for existing and god told me this all the way back in 1997. he spoke to me in 1996 and 1997 that he would bring a revival like what i saw at brownsville through my life that i would see it and be part of it you hear what i'm saying i know what i heard from god the presence of god came over me so strong i would weep my eyes out but see everything's not easy how would you like this word i remember right after god told me those things 1996 he told me and then i went again in 1997 and he told me again and then in 1998 i remember i was working spraying a tub in montgomery in 1998 and the power of god comes on me as i'm listening to a sermon by john kilpatrick while i'm working and the presence of god comes to me i just fall on the floor and weep my eyes out and he tells me again but then the lord told me this he said the next 10 years of your life will not be like this past 10 years things are going to be very bad so i know what it is to go out of revival into the desert in the wilderness for a while but folks he said there's times of refreshing there's times of revival appointed times and let me just say this there are appointed times appointed places and appointed people and if you want to be in it you got to be positioned at the appointed time at the appointed place you're supposed to be and the appointed people you're supposed to be around so i remember god set me up you know what was beautiful and i haven't talked to van lane in a long time but van lane is the one i talked about my friend that became the children's pastor
at brownsville assembly of god two years before the revival broke out about a year and a half and i remember to see i knew him because i was the singles minister at the evangel temple the church in montgomery i was just leading the singles and leading the the prayer meetings and preaching on wednesday night there was a season evangel went through a bad season and didn't have a pastor basically i was doing almost everything and i remember i mean it's a big church about a 1200 member church and i remember that um what was i saying huh oh i remember you know van lane was the children's pastor at evangel and i remember he and i met and the church had just gone through the the pastor that had been there for a long time had left and then a you know a shyster con man came and screwed things up for about nine months and the church was just disillusioned there was a lot of crazy shenanigans going on with the board and that's why i hate denominational churches and and in stupid made up man structure of church government we should go by the bible but i remember standing in the chapel there was the main sanctuary they had a chapel used to be the old church but that's where they had children's church but it was between the offices the chapel you kind of walked through the chapel to get to the offices and i remember i was walking from the main sanctuary through the chapel and he was coming out of the offices and we kind of met each other in the chapel and nobody else was in there and he had heard me preaching on wednesday night in that church on revival i mean this is 1991. hungry for revival hungry for a move of god remember i told you i just kind of come out of that time period and starting to go into another kind of dry time in the wilderness time and i was like hungry again for god to move and for his presence and for power and revival to happen and see people's lives changed and i remember we were both kind of discouraged by what had happened in the church and all the upheaval and the and the shenanigans and the you know politics and the and corrupt and you know and of course then one of the pastors got called practicing practicing homosexuality and you want to talk about a mess that church was in a mess right and i remember us talking how hungry we were together for for something real for a real move of god for a real revival and i remember van he was as sincere he was a good guy he was just like man i'm so sick of this i'm so sick of the politics i'm so sick of the sin i'm so sick of the of the games and playing with the misuse of money in the church i'm just saying all i want i remember he said strike him i was standing there he said all i want
is revival you know what god did with him i love god because god said you know what i got a man here that wants the real thing that's hungry for me so god opened the door and placed him he got a call from john kilpatrick and he took the job as the youth pastor at brown i mean that's the children's minister at brownsville assembly of god a year and a half before the revival because he was able to get everything in order his book about children and children's ministry in revival is one of the best called children of revival but i just want to tell you god god god sees the desires of your heart they're real he sees if it's if it's ambition if it's selfish ambition or your will is truly surrendered to god and it doesn't always mean that you're going to get out of the wilderness when you want to doesn't always mean that you're it's going to be easy because remember there's an appointed time there's an appointed place and there's appointed people you got to know where you're supposed to be but i remember when the revival broke out there two years later and when i heard about it i didn't even know where van lane had gone and then i find out he's this revival is going on in pensacola florida at this assembly of god church and i find out that the children's minister is van lane and i said look at that god honored this man's prayer his humble broken heart his his desire for the real thing i want to tell you some of those meetings that they brought the kids in the main service and let them share what god was doing wow wow remember his daughter whitney when she was eight years old she came in there and shared where she had a vision of of being in prayer and her prayers pulling people out of hell eight-year-old girl oh yeah it was the real thing you know when we were in worship the lord just kind of shared this thing with me you know about this appointed time and appointed place think about this you guys this this this this just washed over me as we were in worship a minute ago now you think about what jesus did think about the 12 12 apostles and you think about as jesus was coming up to go to the cross that was not in their minds
their minds is hey we got a good thing going here jesus you're preaching and people are repenting and believing the gospel and people are getting healed and you're casting out demons gosh you're even raising the dead well you could just go ahead and be king right now we could just set up the kingdom of israel right now no one could defeat you or defeat us and they had their plans jesus kept trying to tell him no no no no it's not time for that it's not the time the son of man must he must be betrayed he must fall into the hands of sinners he must be he must suffer and die and then be raised again he said they did not understand that saying see nobody wants the wilderness nobody wants the cross or the defeat peter says to him i was reading it last night in luke peter says to him lord i'm ready to go with you to death he said oh no no peter you're not ready no you're not ready in fact satan has desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat you will deny me before the crows peter said no and actually begin to argue with the lord no no i won't i'm i don't even even know it's not a good idea to argue with the lord it's going to happen the way he said right but you think about that the bible says jesus they came to get him at night judas so one of his own betrayed him he came to get him at night they arrested him and everyone was scattered from him matter of fact in mark it says they all forsook him and fled see they went through the crop now think about this you guys think this is what i'm getting at many of it looked bad they were weeping they were grieving they saw jesus let them take him they let he let them beat him and mock him and spit upon him and they let jesus let them nail him to a cross and they said the words we remember the the the disciples that we we had believed that he was the messiah they had they lost faith they lost hope they were depressed they were discouraged you had one betrayer who committed suicide one and you had another one who who had denied him and
the rest of them ran like little chickens ran away in fear not really looking like revival at that point now i want you to think about this in the midst of that apparent defeat and darkness and confusion it would only be 50 days until the holy spirit came down on the day of pentecost boom and 3 000 people got saved and the church was born into the glorious presence of god and peter's shadow was healing the sick and lame men were getting up and walking and then another 5 000 get saved one of the one of the greatest revivals or if not the greatest outpouring of the holy spirit the greatest local revival that's ever happened in the history of mankind but 40 50 days before that they had no idea what was about to happen [Music] i wonder if judas would have known that would he have done what he did i like what jesus said a lot of people think that judas was like predetermined because what the calvinist would like to say he was predestined to do that no no jesus made this i read it again last night i was reading luke 20 through the end and he said about he said oh it's gonna go for the son of man the way it's supposed to happen below to the man that betrays him i think jesus was plainly saying there what's going to happen with me going to the cross and dying for your sins and being resurrected that they're that's going to happen judas didn't have to do what he did somebody they would have come and got him at some point but what happened judas missed the appointed time this is what's sad to me because of his own agenda because of his own desires because of his blindness of his heart he missed the revival i know a lot of people that backslide and fall away from god because they're going through the dry time in a difficult time god wants to move and getting ready to move but there's an appointed time there's an appointed place there's an appointed person got to bring into your life or put you in a place where god's going to touch you and revive you and refresh you and renew you or bring you to repentance you got to be in that right place at that right time with the right people where god is going to move
and you can't let your emotions or discouragement or selfish ambition or your own agenda or your own will get you out of god's plan and i just want to tell fire and grace church i know we've been going through difficult spots here and i know we've been going through ups and downs and we've been through this little bit of wilderness and yes we've had little glimpses of god's presence and the gifts of the holy spirit and deliverances and some healings here a little bit but i think everybody's still being kind of discouraged because we want more and listen that's okay we should want more we should be hungry and thirsty for more of god's presence more of his power more souls to get saved for breakthrough and outpouring of revival and i know it hadn't happened yet but hope deferred makes the heart sick but hold on because the desire that we have of god to to to do his will the desire we have will be fulfilled it will be a tree of life i know like i know my name that we don't deserve it that we haven't earned it that we are nothing like the saints in that first century or even those at azusa street or brownsville we are not as given to prayer fasting and yet god in his mercy he's just looking for a people who will stay hungry stay in his will i've said it before it's like a surfer you've got to position yourself i said the surfers not just the talent that it takes and the skill it takes to keep your balance on a surfboard and ride a wave but they have to learn the skill of positioning themselves out there to catch the wave you ever seen a kid trying to catch a wave that's never really been in the ocean it's a hard time figuring out he just what wave after wave passes them by right i don't want us to be passed by and you know the lord this morning when i was praying he he laid on my heart just to tell you this it's time to get back to basics knowledge revelation knowing all the neat interesting things that's going on in the world and understanding the nephilim and all all that's good but do you pray at least an hour a day i was talking to my wife back in the 80s larry lee's ministry and his church was it was
powerful man it was a revival and what was he doing he was challenging the church with the simple phrase of jesus could you not tarry one hour could you not give god one hour of day of prayer use the lord's prayer as an outline pray for revival pray for souls pray for your needs worship god bind the devil resist the devil put on the armor of god the basics see i dare say that most of even most in this church you do not pray an hour a day consistently this is simple there's a simple truth if you want god you make time for god simple things fasting and you know i'ma just say this at times i know in different ones of you at different times because our church has been in this time period the devil's tried to bring in this little critical spirit i know it why didn't this happen why didn't that happen why don't we do this why don't we do that should we do we should do this we should do that we should see this we should see that but here's here here's something that i'm just going to lay on you okay because i used to say this when i was a younger christian to myself because i used to say this i said you know if it's been a long time since i've actually led someone to jesus it's time for me to get my act together listen the most fundamental work of every church member should be to pray to fast to preach the gospel and lead others to jesus so i ask you how many people have you led to jesus this year i mean i'm not i'm not talking about how many people you witness to how many people you reached out to i'm talking about that you actually closed the deal
you preached to them and you witnessed to them until they came under conviction of sin and you led them to repentance and faith in jesus and saw them truly born again and began to disciple them now unless there's something i don't know i think just about everybody almost everybody in this room we could put up a big goose egg number to that so you know what that tells me that tells me and it ought to convict us the gospel according to romans 1 16 the gospel is the power of god unto salvation i'm going to tell you why if you haven't let anybody to jesus even in the last year or the last two years let me tell you why it's because you lack the power of the holy spirit because you lack prayer you lack fasting and you've lacked boldness to push people to make a decision can i say that it is not just the pastor's job to lead people to jesus christ we have got to lose that mentality everybody say this with me it is my job to lead someone to jesus christ all the way in it should bother you if you have not led someone to jesus i know people all the time i love charles finney you know because charles finney in his book revival lectures he made some he made some very powerful points because he talked about churches who were looking for a minister and he used the verse about he that when his souls is wise and he's talked about in that chapter it takes great wisdom to lead someone to jesus he said a lot of times when they were churches would be looking for a pastor they would be looking at how well he's educated or what he's done in his church before did it grow did their budget grow did their building grow all this stuff he said but what every church should be looking at and he was just talking about back then if they're looking to to find a pastor is he wise to win souls he said if not he said your your family your children and your community is going to be in jeopardy under his preaching right i know
many preachers pastors that preach a lot of sermons that go to a lot of conferences have never led anybody to jesus because you know what what did jesus say to them when he told them after he rose from the dead he said go to jerusalem acts chapter 1 wait for the promise of the father for you will be baptized with the holy ghost not many days hence and after the holy ghost has come on you you will have what power to be a witness how could peter go from basically denying the lord the bible says falling away from god so far that it said he would jesus said he would have to be converted and brought back to standing up on the day of pentecost and leading 3000 people to jesus in one sermon you want to know how that's possible because he just spent days actually we know that from the moment he betrayed the lord it said he went out and wept bitterly and we know that he went out off on his own and he went back to fishing and he was constantly broken and contemplating what he had done and repenting over that and jesus appeared to him and brought him back but he spent that 10 days in prayer remember 10 days in the upper room 120 10 days in prayer and then he was filled with the holy ghost so you see what i'm saying the man had taken a month and a half or more to repent over his sin and his failure to pray for god's mercy and power and god's will to be done in his life then he obeyed jesus and he was in the right place at the right time with the right folks in a prayer meeting and the holy ghost fell and he was filled and he was anointed and he had the boldness and the power to stand up and not just preach a sermon but preach a sermon that was effective to bring conviction and salvation to the people listening this is what we've got to get individually and corporately it wasn't just peter's prayers it was the church's prayers but you see what i'm saying our lack of seeing miracles our lack of seeing true conversions and and leading people to jesus it's only because of us we lack
you want to lead somebody to jesus you're going to have to spend time in prayer for them you're gonna have to be a person who spends time in prayer to get power so that your words your words have to have power behind them we have all slack that i'm just going to say i have slacked and every one of us in here have been slack in this area amen we can change that maybe we've been like peter we just completely have failed that's okay because you know what the gospel you know what the good news of the gospel is i tell you the good news of the gospel what it is is that jesus made a way that we could be forgiven when we blow it that's good news it's good news that like peter you think about it peter and the boys right before jesus is going to be crucified they're sitting around arguing who's going to be the greatest among them i guess peter won the argument because his fall was pretty hard and pride goes before a fall right but look at that screw-up of peter and yet 50 days later who did god use the failure the one who blew it the one who messed up but had repented and obeyed and positioned himself and was hungry and god took that failure that sinner that one who cursed and denied jesus in front of people he took that man that repented and was humble and broken and not only did he use him to preach the first sermon of the new church that led 3000 people to jesus but later something we've never heard of since he said well smith wigglesworth but peter's shadow they laid the sick people in the streets that just as peter walked by his shadow would touch them and they would be healed by the power of jesus that happened in san francisco by the way with smith wilder's work so let me get that straight it did happen again back in the 1940s but hear what i'm saying peter was just a man
who had messed up some had screwed up had struggled with pride remember he's one cut the guy's ear off he had a lot of issues peter did i mean jesus always has no no stop peter relax you know i understand what we're doing here so let me heal this guy she just chopped his ear off hear what i'm saying and i can just tell you this i'm gonna close with this it's time for us if we're if we want to see that season of revival again and i believe i believe god has spoken sovereignly just like he did with the apostles go to jerusalem wait there's instructions always beforehand and i believe our instructions have been for this church and for our calling i believe the instructions has been be faithful position yourself when the bovine excrement hits the fan in america you will have positioned yourself because of what you have preached and taught you i've positioned yourself to reap the harvest you're supposed to reap and just a couple of wednesday nights back when we were in prayer the lord reminded me that he gave me psalm he spoke to me in 1989 in the midst of that move of god in the midst of some of the most fasting i've ever done in my life the holy spirit spoke to me in 1989 and gave me psalms 60 1-5 and within that when he says arise and shine your light has come and the glory of the lord has risen upon you behold darkness will cover the earth and gross darkness the people but the lord will arise upon you and his glory will be seen upon you and then he goes on to talk about how the abundance of the sea will be converted kings will even come and be saved he says leaders and i know what he was saying to me he showed me that he gave me that in 1989 powerfully and said this is for you but not now we are now moving in to the time of gross darkness but god said the people who arise you know what the word arise means let me give you the denotable definition of arise get up off your butt and do something for god
get out of bed and pray put the fart down and fast a little bit seek god and seek the lost we're getting ready to go to the streets here pretty soon but before we go we need a season of real prayer increase in this church or we're just going through the motions we're basically saying our work going out to preach the gospel is what's going to get it done no prayer will get it done first then you go prayer gives you the power when you go amen but i know and that's what happened the other week i was watching that rabbi jonathan khan speak about the shmitah and one of the things he said in there he goes and and here's a guy a messianic jewish guy and he says america is so hardened and calloused and jaded to the gospel basically he said i know america's not gonna gonna turn until they get hit until something shocks him and immediately when he said it it just resonated with so many things god has revealed to us about that very same principle that america has heard the gospel and heard the gospel and set it home and and done their own thing and just lived in sin and ignored it and or gone to church and been church folks so i'm just telling you make sure what did he say i'm going to read our verse again what he said put that verse back up if you would bro if you can that acts 3. repent that means change your mind and your actions reform your actions if you haven't been praying fast repent means to change repent therefore and be converted turn around turn turn around from what you've been doing is what converted mean that your sins may be blotted out that's a good thing repent what you have to do to get the sins blotted out when the times appointed times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the lord there's an appointed time is coming the question is will you be where you're supposed to be will you be ready
to do your part will you be hearing god's will or following your own agenda will you let discouragement and the time of difficulty get you off course i hope not amen because when you move into one of these times of revival they're pretty awesome i know i've seen churches have get start to move into this time and because the people were not prepared they haven't prepared themselves in prayer and repentance and dealing with sin and dealing with prayerlessness and dealing with laziness but but there was an appointed time that came god began to move they weren't ready and resisted it and god moved on and they missed it you can miss an appointed time because god will come when he set his time to come but if you're not ready and don't answer the door he will move to the next place he'll find the people who are ready and hungry amen let's pray hallelujah heavenly father we love you and we thank you lord i sent your presence here today i sent you giving us instructions lord to not miss your plan and purpose for this church lord and us individually now we want to move into that we want to be ready for that appointed time of revival and refreshing that comes from an outpouring of your presence a move of the holy spirit we want to be positioned to to lead people to jesus and and to lead them into the truth and to disciple them and and to be lord a true witness for the gospel in these last days god we believe your promise that like peter we may have been screwing up messing up but that you forgive us if we repent and we turn back to you and say god have mercy forgive us use us we want to be in your will show me your will let me do it god i pray in jesus name root out of us laziness root out of us
distractions root out of us god our own will and our own agendas rule out just just root it out and let us hear your voice and and like peter and the rest of them and the 120 let us be positioned in obedience in the right place at the right time of the right people and let your spirit be poured upon us and we pray that that would happen in churches all over this region all over america and the world that they would get ready for this appointed time of revival that's coming in the midst of judgment father i pray this today i pray that this won't just be a message that we hear and just let go by the wayside i pray everyone here everyone listening by blog talk radio everyone who's listening maybe to this archived later i pray every one of you will begin to make changes and to do the things you need to do to get yourself positioned to be in a move of god wherever you are even if it just has to start with you father touch every person speak to every person let every person take this message that i feel is from the holy spirit today take this message to heart and make changes so we'll be ready father i pray for your grace and mercy and your help to do this holy spirit help us guide us into all truth guide us and prepare us to be vessels that can catch and hold some glory and let it flow out to others we pray this in jesus name amen and amen hallelujah did you learn something today say my prayer for all of you i want every one of you to see it when it happens i want you to be in the midst of it i want you to to walk up to me after some services whether they're out on the campus or out on the street or here or somewhere else i want you to walk up to me hardly being able to walk the glory of god being so strong come up to me and say pastor dean i just led five people to the lord at work today they were in tears weeping their eyes out getting saved and i can hardly stand up in here and i know exactly what you're talking about now i know what you're talking about i want to hear something say that i wept
my eyes out last night in prayer and intercession the holy spirit helping me pray for the loss i want to be in services where people just sit there and weep in the presence of god and it's so strong that the preacher just said i can't preach we'll just we'll just worship and pray i've been in services like that brownsville i remember times the presence of god would come down so strong and they would have like one person get up and share a testimony and after they shared that testimony the power of god would fall nobody could do anything else people be weeping and falling in the floor moaning and groaning and crying and praying and interceding i remember steve hill you know john kilpatrick and mike brown would sit there and they'd hide their heads because they said we're just scared to move we don't want to mess it up we don't want to grieve the holy spirit away steve would say he would nudge him say you take it no i ain't doing it you go up there i ain't going up there i don't want to go up there i want to mess so they just sit there stuff like that i mean steve hill saw that this youth group come one time the power of god hit them during praise and worshiping really hit them as praise and worship was ending i mean and the power of god was moving and flowing on these kids and he thought they were getting out of hand so he went over he was going to go over there to uh tell them to cool it settle down he said he walked up as he got near to them he they had moved them out of the service behind there was a there was a hallway it went all the way around behind the stage the platform and they had moved those kids out and said he was walking over there basically to tell them to cool it a little bit he said the holy spirit told him do not touch the children he was like what do not touch the children and he was still walking over there to basically tell them to cool it he said got over there in the power of the holy spirit knocked him up against the law said i told you do not touch the children put them back in the service and let me move and he put the teenagers back in the service that were under the power of god and the power of god fell in this earth but it doesn't even have to make sense you see what i'm saying the glory can come down the power can come down and you don't have to tell everybody what to do because the holy ghost is in charge that would happen in azusa street a lot it happened at the welsh revival a lot and it happened at the brownsword revival a lot i saw it in my own eyes so what i'm saying is i'm longing for that i want all of us to experience that i want to experience it again i about can't stand it much longer
i need it i need everybody said i need revival in me please god do it all right we gotta get um paul would you pray over