Revival, what an awesome thing
it is. Three or four years ago, Dr.
Christopher and Leah told me about a gentleman and actually
a pastor who was preaching grace, proclaiming the gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace. I can't pronounce his last name. If you want to know how to pronounce
it, you can see Dr. Christopher and Leah after service,
they can tell you. T-C-H-I-V-I-D-J-I-A-N. I think that's Scandinavian.
Is that right? Or something. It's something.
Okay. He pastored a large Presbyterian
church in Fort Lauderdale, and some of you may remember that
Miss Pam and I went to their Bible conference for three or
four days there, and some outstanding grace pastors and preachers that
you may have heard of spoke at that conference. Tillian is his
name. That's his first name, Tillian.
T-U-L-L-I-A-N. His middle name is Billy Graham. He is the grandson of Billy Graham. Over the course of time, like
all of us in here, he had an encounter with demons with his
own flesh. Actually had a couple of affairs.
Lost his wife, lost the church. Actually lost everything. He
lost everything. After that Bible conference,
everything but one. You know, if you ever have Jesus
Christ, you can't lose Jesus Christ. During that and after the conference,
I was texting his office and actually trying to get him to
come and speak to us. The first time I called, they
said to me, his assistant said to me, well, it'll be at least
a year, maybe a year and a half before he has any openings to
come and speak. And it never got quite over that
in my mind that someday we would have him. Sometimes You don't want to be turned over
to yourself. But sometimes God has great lessons for us in letting
us do our own thing. You don't want to be the captain
of your own ship. You're going to wreck. You're going to have
a shipwreck, I can tell you that. At any rate, what I'm getting
to is that in the providence of God, what an awesome God we
have. Dr. Christopher and Leah went
to San Diego to a Lutheran Bible conference celebrating 500 years
of biblical Lutherism, justification by faith alone. It was there
that they went into the auditorium, I think maybe toward the end
of the conference, and sat down by a Lutheran pastor, and Christopher
and Leah began to tell him about themselves, and where they came
from, and this church, and kind of what was going on here. And in the providence of God, to Tillian, His name came up. I think Dr. Christopher and Leah
brought it up. And this guy said, well, do you
know of him? I'm his pastor. Now, what are
the chances of something like that happening? Two people from
this church fly all the way to San Diego to a Lutheran by faith
Bible conference and sat down by a pastor who knows the man
that we wanted to get and come to us and speak to us losers
here. The amen ought to have been louder. Now I will tell you this. He
lost his pastorate. He lost his money. He lost his
wife. He lost his kids. There is a
price for sin, amen? But the glorious thing is there
is forgiveness with God. Now, I'm going to be quite honest
with you. His coming to us is not going
to be a popular thing with many pastors and religious associations. He's a kind of a broken guy.
It's good. But before you judge anybody
too strong, just take a close look at yourselves. So what I'm trying to get to
is this, that he will be here on Saturday night, Sunday morning
and Monday morning, beginning on November the 18th through
the 20th. So you're going to hear, he'll
probably tell you about that. Oh, to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be. It's amazing grace how sweet
the sound that saved a wretch like me. So I hope you will put
that on your calendar, that's Saturday night, November the
18th, and then Sunday morning, right here, and then Monday over
at the center, we may open it up, we'll see how big the crowd's
going to be. Some people will probably come
who will want to throw stones, but the amens and hallelujahs
will be louder. And then for some years, several
years ago, if you look at the providence of God and how God
works things out, you will come to know that this God is the
great architect. Think about this, just think
about this for a minute. This great God who condescended
into this world gave himself in the person of his son on the
tree of the cross in our room, stead, and place. What a spectacular
thing that was. And so he's working all things
out for his own glory and praise. When this church was in its baby
stage, we bought the old building 210 North Perry. Actually, after
we bought it, or when we bought it, there was two other churches
meeting in there. The mission had just been raided.
We had made the headlines. There was two churches in there.
And then we put a third church in there, us. So upstairs on
the middle floor, and then in the main auditorium, we'd have
three churches meeting. The previous owners had permitted
and legally kind of bound us up where we had to let these
churches meet. And then came along John Gunn
with the Kids Power Company. And he had no place to meet on
Saturday with over 400 kids. And I said, well, how about our
place? Now we have four churches, not
literally churches, but three churches and kids powerhouse
with 400 kids meeting in that building. At that time, John
Gunn had a single daughter who led these kids in the children's
choir. and they were just outstanding
and sang several days for us, several times for us there at
that building. Later on in the providence of
God, this young lady married a man who was in ministry to
children, and they moved to South Africa to work with the children
who lived in the city dump there, and many of these kids had lost
their mothers and fathers to AIDS. And she started the children's
choir. And I had been telling Pastor
Gunn, I sure would like to get those kids from South Africa
to our church. You'll want to mark this date
down. December the 3rd, the kids from South Africa are going to
be here, it looks like, with us. You never know what God is doing
in your life today that's going to meet up with you down the
road. because all things work together for good to them that
love the Lord. Aren't you glad he's in control?
I am so glad about that. Well, you've heard the scripture
reading. There's so many places in God's Word and especially
in the Old Testament that I could have asked Greg to read concerning
revival, concerning awakening, concerning a move of God. Since 1964, I've been asking
God to send revival, to send awakening over 50 years. I do want you to remember this.
The children of Israel were in Egyptian bondage for 400 years. And the Bible says they were
crying on God. They were crying out to God.
And finally God said something like this, I am come down to
deliver. Back then I had no depth as to
what revival was and not sure that I have a lot of depth and
clear understanding Now, I did know that it had something to
do with God's presence. I did know that revival was actually
experiencing God in your life. And my question to you today
is, I know this, I am in the middle of a great revival. I do know that. I'm talking about
me personally. I'm talking about experiencing God. You're sitting in church today.
Some of you had to be here. Some of you came because you're
religious. And some of you came because you couldn't wait to
get here. As times passed, I became increasingly
aware that something was bad wrong in the world. and in the
church. I was 19 years old, preaching
in Baptist churches all over the South. I came to a startling
and awesome discovery. Ichabod was written over the
door of the church. The glory has departed. One month, I drove nearly 10,000
miles and spoke for 30 straight nights in different churches. Ichabod, the glory was gone. There was a hollow Bostra shout from within the
church, a braggamony. Now I personally now I'm talking
about Baptist churches that I primarily was in. But what could be said
of the Baptist can be said of the Catholics. We're the only
church. We're the church of Jesus Christ.
What a horrible thing it is. to be thinking you are the only
true church. We don't have enough truth to
wad a shotgun. We don't know enough about God
to be shouting. I'll tell you, when you get to
the place where it's not an emotional response, but a deep down hallelujah
in your soul, then you are having awakening
and revival. The saddest thing I observe and
have observed for many, many years is that most people aren't
experiencing God. I don't want to go through a
ceremony. I want to give hell more trouble than hell gives
me. I want to worship God. I want
to lift up the name of Jesus Christ. The majority of denominational
churches today are making the same boast. We're it. We're the
true church of Jesus Christ. And my question is to all of
the denominational churches, I don't care what you are, if
you're the church of Jesus Christ, where is he? I mean, I've been
to your church. It's dead and cold and orthodox,
and it may be fundamental or it may be very, very formal. I want to see the Lord. I want
to sense the presence of God. Being a young man and traveling,
I was 25 when Pam and I got married, and I remember I was thinking
about all of this last night. It seemed to me as I traveled
in that 56 Buick, all over the state of Kentucky and Florida
and different places, that every once in a while I would see what
I thought maybe was a move of the Spirit of God. And then I watched as it got
weaker and weaker, until I realized we were godless. That means without
God. I'm talking about without the
presence of God. If God's not here, nothing's
going to happen that's worth anything today. Nothing's going
to happen. We're going to go through a ritual
and a ceremony. That's it. I took note of what Greg said
in his prayer, thank you, Lord, for being here today, and thank
you, Lord, for us being able to worship you today. You see,
some of us older folks, my great-grandfather was a Baptist preacher, and my
great-grandmother, they may have They may have known God, and
I think they did, and I think they experienced God back then
to some degree, but the truth is generation after generation
has come and gone, and I have watched for 50 years as the church
became powerless and weak. As I, at 19 to 25, battle my
own demons of the flesh, and at the same time longing to experience
God, I many times did my best to quit. I can't tell you how
many. I'm like some of you smokers.
I've quit a hundred times. I decided I would just find a
job, make a lot of money, and live on the husk that the world
had to offer. I would just quit and give up.
And here I am, 53 years later, standing in this pulpit. You see, because when I would
say I would quit, or go astray, or my flesh would get out of
line, there was a fire shut up in my bones. There was a hunger
and a thirst to know God. The years rolled by and things
didn't get better. In fact, things got worse. By
the time I was 30, with four degrees in theology, I was put out of the Baptist
church. Specifically for one reason. I said Christ is all. I'm still
saying that. Christ is A-double-L. In 1972, I read the biography
of George Whitefield, a young preacher who was shut out of
the Church of England for preaching the gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace. I then saw and longed to experience
and know the God of this preacher. I felt like I knew somewhat of
the message of the gospel. But I was weary of preaching
the gospel that Paul preached without the results. I longed to see hundreds come
to know Christ. I long to see big sinners converted
to the Lord Jesus. When I was reading Whitfield's
biography, he would tell stories of preaching out in the field
because the church wouldn't let him in their buildings. And he'd
preach to 10,000 with no microphone. Think about that. Our microphones
go out and we panic. Think about a guy out in the
corn field where the, you know, corn stubble field preaching
the gospel of Jesus Christ to 10,000 people. I read where mischievous boys
would throw eggs at Whitfield as he preached and how those
boys got converted under the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen. That same year, I read a message
by Alexander McShane. And while reading that message,
I came to see the problem. I also took note that Greg said,
these passages in Jeremiah 14 are very familiar to most of
us. That's because over and over since 1968, I have brought McShane's
message to those that I had opportunity
to preach to. The absence of God. Why are you
like a man turned to stone? The absence of God, the silence
of God. You're a stranger in the land.
I saw it and believed it. Not only a stranger in the land,
but a stranger in the church. Oh, I saw places where there
was emotion and great emotion and tongues. And I watched the
charismatic movement come and go to a great degree. And they're still speaking in
tongues and that sort of thing going on occasionally. And people
have tremendous feelings. And I really don't know about
all that. I even gave it a shot. I said
to myself, I'm going to speak in tongues. I'm going to speak
in tongues. I'd get in my closet and I'd
say, OK, I'm ready. Let it happen. And by the way, if you speak
in tongues, That's fine with me. Just don't do it right now
while I'm preaching. If you want to go home and speak
in tongues. Or if there's somebody from France here who can't understand
English and all of a sudden you're a barefoot hillbilly and you
have the gift to speak French. Well, come up here with me and
as I speak, you interpret what I say to that person. I'm there.
You say, well, pastor, are you knocking those of us who speak
in an unknown tongue? Not knocking it, just saying,
I want to know Christ. I want to hear about him. I want
to see him exalted and honored and praised. And besides that,
if we all spoke in tongues, would not unbelievers come in and say,
those people are crazy. I'm not going back over there.
I'm going back to the crack house or whatever. So, speak in tongues, help yourself,
do it at home, or if we have somebody who speaks a different
language and you interpret as I preach the gospel, that'd be
all right. But what I'm saying is this,
the Baptists didn't have it, the Catholics didn't have it,
the Assemblies of God didn't have it, the Church of God didn't
have it, and the Church of Christ, think about how we name ourselves. We are the Church of God. We're
the only ones. We are the assembly of God. We
are Baptists. You know John was a Baptist.
You think God gets excited over that? I'll tell you what God
gets excited over. And the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us. Anyway, while I'm reading McShane's
message, I came to see the problem. And you know what the problem
is? You know what the problem is today, perhaps? The absence
of God. You know what God has promised
to do? Bless the preaching of the gospel. I say it over and
over to you. Some of you are very weary. Well,
I want to hear about the little stone of Revelation. Well, you
won't hear it here, because I don't know. I know about the big rock,
Jesus Christ. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. That has not changed. Today,
think about this, there is a dead sinner in this place, helpless,
hopeless, heroin addict, crack addict, self-righteous Pharisee,
dead in your trespasses and sins. We need a miracle God here who
can give life to the dead. Center on Jesus Christ. Lift
Christ. Lift Him high. We need to learn
how to forgive one another. How do you forgive one another?
As God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven us. Amen. Whitfield's preaching and Alexander
McShane's message on God a stranger in the land changed my life. It doesn't mean that during revival,
or during the presence of God, that everything is just going
so good. At the time I was reading Whitfield's
biography, and at the time that little church in Brinesville,
Kentucky was beginning to grow, and harlots and drunkards were
coming to Christ there, and that little church just blossomed
from 14 to like 250. It was through the preaching
of the gospel, and then Pam had the car wreck, and our baby died,
and all kinds of things happened. It doesn't mean that simply because
we're in revival that everything is just shouting hallelujah all
the time. But it does mean this, and I
know this because I experienced it. I stood at the gravesite
of my own son and experienced God in such a way that I have
never, ever experienced the Lord in my life. I know that when
it's dark and cloudy and things are bad, revival can be going
on. Because you're experiencing God. Over the years, God has opened
many doors for me to pray at political and social events. I have watched America fall.
I have watched America go downhill. I have seen partial birth abortion,
which to me just blew my mind. Partial birth abortion, where
babies were ripped from their mother's womb in pieces at eight
months. I said, that can't be happening
in America. Let me tell you, lots of things happen when God's
not around. And they're not good things. But in speaking at political
and social events, I began to address this matter of the absence
of God. It was dominant in my thinking.
At the State Republican Convention, my prayer was entitled, Since
You've Been Gone. I opened the Republican Convention
with a prayer, Since You've Been Gone. Since you've been gone,
our kids are killing themselves and one another. Since you've
been gone. And then of course, you know,
just a short time ago during President Obama's presidency,
called to the House of Representatives to lead the house in prayer and
mentioned and directly talked about the names of Jesus Christ
that are given in scripture. I've preached God's a stranger
in America. in Lansing from the steps of
the Capitol. We've lost this message, and
the churches have quit preaching how God is a just God, and at
the same time is able to justify a filthy, rotten, dirty, conniving,
crack-smoking sinner through the blood of Jesus Christ. I'm excited today. I'm happy
today. Because I'm going to tell you
something. We, right now, and I believe this all over this
world, are experiencing revival. I believe that God has shown
himself. Now I'm telling you, a few months
ago, I thought we were goners. Somebody asked me this week,
Do you think, do you actually think that President Trump is
a saved man? I don't know. But I do know this,
there is a big God and somehow or another this wild man who
has become President of the United States that nobody thought was
gonna be President of the United States, including me. I just heard him speak to this
Focus on the Family group. And the things he said blew me
away. And somebody said to me, can
you imagine that being said a year ago? No way. There is no way. I'm telling you something has
happened. I'm not saying that Mr. Trump is the same. I don't know.
I don't know whether you're saved. I know I am because I'm trusting
Christ. But I don't know about you and I don't know about him.
But I do know he's talking about God. You know what? God can make
a jackass talk. Did you know that? God, listen
to me, God can make a rooster crow. God can make a big fish
swallow a man. God is a God who has a will and
is determined to accomplish the glory of His Son in Jesus Christ. I was reading last night some
news clippings about God goes to the White House. I said, it's
about time. about Bible study, that Trump's
cabinet meets every week in Bible study. Now, can you imagine that? Say, wow, you must be a Republican.
I'm a Christian, and I like to hear God's name used and not
in vain. You know, there is a movement
to do away with a lot of things that are happening here, a mess
that has happened here, that only God can do that. Revival. I have a book here from
1968-69 of messages. I was looking at this last night
and there's a message on when and how revival will come. Way
back then. And I remember thinking this. I remember back then, I had,
even though I preached the sovereignty of God and the greatness of God,
I had God so boxed up, you know, that God only had, God could
only bring revival through a certain way. I mean, we all had to get
sanctified. You know, since I was eight years
old, I've been trying to get sanctified. I haven't accomplished
that yet. I'm a wild ass's coat in my flesh. You are too. And let me say to
all you churchy people, you're not nearly as nice as you think
you are. Now, the only people that God
has come to save is raw bone real sinners. Are you a real
sinner? And I know some of you, when
I was talking about this pastor coming, some of you have already
judged him. I don't think a pastor ought
to be having him, especially, you know, we have all these addicts
here. That's why I'm bringing him here, because we have all
these addicts here. And one addict, listen, one addict
to another addict, telling out the good news gives tremendous
hope. Have you lived in the hog pen?
Have you eat the husk of this world? Have you been out there?
And every day, you can't get it off your mind, I don't believe
there's anybody like me, that anybody's, you know, I committed
adultery and fornication, and I've used heroin and crack, and
you know, I drank and caroused. So we're gonna bring a guy in
here just like us. let let him tell what God has
done for him and we'll rejoice in that and what I think is going to
happen is all of us addicts are going to get high Amen. And I think this, you say,
well, it sounds like, you know, it sounds like when you preach
that message, it sounds like you're saying, let us sin that
grace may abound. That's not what I'm saying at
all. Here's what I would say to all of us who are sinning. Stop it. That's what I would say. Thank
God, though, you're not going to hell because Jesus paid it
all. All the debt you owe, sin had
left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. I was looking at my little notes
from 1969, 68. I said, revival is a restoration
out of spiritual decline. And that's true. I said, revival
is a revitalizing of God's people. And that's true. I said, revival
is a reinvigorating of God's people. And then I said this,
revival nowadays suggests an evangelistic campaign. In other
words, be like this. This is down home Kentucky talk.
Hey, we want you all to come out on August the 4th, we're
gonna have revival. How come you waited till August
4th? And somebody ought to take you to court for false advertising. You can't have revival when you
just say August 4th is revival time. Besides, you shouldn't
be putting it off anyway. Let's have God come down now.
Let's have awakening now. Let's shout now. Let's get saved
from our addictions now. Let's ask God to make us new
creatures in Christ. Let's watch God as he does the
impossible. You know, I thought of all of
God's blessings to this, how come it's nine minutes after
12? Don't, you may be standing up
here for a few minutes cause I haven't even got, I haven't
even got going yet. You look at what God's done here. 15 years ago or 12 years ago,
when I was, I stood at the back of my car, the sun was going
down and it was getting dark. And I said, God, give me that
saloon. And you know what God said? I
will. And you know what I thought? Now you won't. But God did. I'm telling you,
you are sitting in a place that's an absolute miracle. Bought and
paid for without debt. You are sitting in a multi-million
dollar building. You just say and and all kinds
of things are happening. You know what? I know God's getting
us ready for something big here God's getting us ready for something
big. I also know this It is God who brings revival
and revival comes when God comes and My proclamation is like Patrick
Henry's I Give me revival in my soul and in my church and
in my nation or give me death. It's been that for a long time.
I didn't think I would live to see this. Yeah, I mean, I think about six
months ago, or eight months ago, or 10 months ago, my whole idea
and thought pattern has totally changed. It's totally changed. I thought we're going down, God's
gonna bring destruction, he's gonna destroy this nation, and
instead, I'm seeing hundreds of people, reading about hundreds
of people all over this world coming to know Jesus Christ.
In China, in Russia, underground. People coming to the Lord Jesus
Christ His name shall be called Jesus for he shall save his people
from their sins something's going on here Something is happening
in our world This world has been swallowed up for many years in
unbelief We have over the last 100 years slowly gradually whittled
ourselves of God and out of creeds and doctrines and denominations.
People say about us here, oh, you know, they are this and they
are that, and you know there's, you know. I mean, you don't want to go over
there. I mean, why would you go into the inner city when you
can go to Birmingham to church? Here's what happens. When God
shows up, things begin to happen that people people get curious
about let's go over there and see let's go over there and see
people come in here and say you know i remember when this place
was just a hell hole it ain't no more it's not no more and so here's
what i want you to do all of you religious folks that i've
upset today here's what i want you to think about How on earth
did that happen over there? How on earth did that happen?
I guarantee you, I know just about everybody here. I don't
think we have a millionaire here. I don't think, well, all things
are yours in Christ, I know that. But I'm talking about maybe,
maybe we do. But there's no one individual
in here God brought people from the outside. The people that
have financially blessed this place are people who don't even
come to church here. Now that's weird. They go to church. Sometimes
I think this way. Why would you give that kind
of money to a church you don't even go to? I mean, figure that
out, right? You think about how God is building
this place and what God is doing with a bunch of us nobodies. That he might get the glory and
honor. Yes, I think what we all need to think about here is this. God is here. God is doing something
here. We can't even explain it. You know what Christianity was
a few years ago? It was just a matter of attending
church. Oh, you're a Christian? Yeah, I go to church most Sundays.
That's not what I said. I said, are you a Christian?
A Christian is a person who knows God and experiencing God. Oh, that I might know him and
be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own. The furthest thing
that I want is any glory, any praise, any honor. I want to
give it all to him. All the glory to Him. Well, okay, I got through my
introduction. Now, in closing, I want to say
to you, come to Jesus Christ just as you are. Trust Jesus
Christ, just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood
was shed for me. Oh, Lamb of God, I come, I come. And if you come to Christ that
way, and you profess faith in Christ that way, I'll tell you
what's going to happen in here. We're going to clap. We're gonna
go like that. Praise God! That's what we're
gonna do. We accept you as a sinner. God
accepts you in Jesus Christ. That's the way we accept you.
Say, well, you know, Pastor, you're always talking about us
addicts, or you're talking about religious people. You know, it's
no wonder you haven't filled that place up yet. Just wait.
I'm not trying to fill it up. I'm watching God fill this place
up. I guarantee you. I guarantee
you. Stay with the gospel. Stay with
Christ. Stay with the glory of God in
Jesus Christ. And God will honor it. God has
done great things for us. and when we stop honoring him
giving him the glory you're not here but I guarantee you when
we give him the glory he comes nigh to us you know I've had
the most unusual things happen to me in the last two years I've
had people meet me in big boy and give me three million dollars
I've had people hand me checks you say well Well, you know,
you're always talking about money. I'm talking about money that
comes from unexpected places, things that happen. The glory of God. You haven't
seen anything yet. And I often hear this, we can't
do that. We can't do that. I know we can't,
but I know God can. Be careful about we can't do
this unless you but but God can I Can do all things through Christ.
How about your own goals your own life? That's gonna use you
God hasn't brought you here for you to sit I but to be used. We're getting ready for seven
Sunday school classes. We're getting ready for a youth
program. Somebody said to me last week,
well, you're doing all this, you don't even have a youth pastor,
you don't have this, you don't have, I know, but they're on
their way. Well, where are they coming from? God. God's getting
us ready to minister. He may call you. You know, you're not here just
to sit. You're not a sponge just brought here to absorb information. God has brought you for a purpose,
for a reason. Amen? Revival. You want to experience God? I
do. That's the greatest thrill in
life, experiencing God, knowing God. Let's stand and sing together.