The Atmosphere For Miracles

Lift our Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Say this together, say heavenly Father, thank God for the Holy Ghost.

He's moving in our midst tonight, but I need the Word and the Spirit working together in my life.

They're putting me over in every circumstance.

Bring them into a position of greater influence and my witness is making a difference in this world.

In Jesus' name, amen, amen, amen, praise the Lord.

Let's look at a couple of places in the Old Testament Zechariah, chapter 10.

Zechariah 10 · chapter mention

And then also Hosea, chapter 6.

Hosea 6 · chapter mention

Hosea is right before Joel, if you're looking for it.

They're both minor prophets.

Now you know, I don't think they consider themselves minor prophets and I would hate to say oh yeah, hosea, you're a minor prophet.

I don't think I'll say that.

When I meet him, he had some pretty valuable prophetic words.

All right.

Zechariah 10, verse one.

Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain, so the Lord shall make bright clouds and give them showers of rain to everyone.

Grass in the field.

So here we're talking about rain and grass.

Our grass got some rain this afternoon.

Praise God, all right.

And then over at Hosea, chapter 6, verse one.

Hosea 6 · chapter mention

Come and let us return unto the Lord, for he hath torn and he will heal us.

He hath smitten and he will bind us up.

Okay, well now the Bible is progressive revelation and you have to read the Old Testament, new Testament, eyes, and I have to say we know more about what the devil does than what's written here.

So I don't take it like God smites us and God rips us up.

Okay, that's the devil's job.

But God will bind us up, god will heal us, amen.

Now look at verse two.

After two days will he revive us?

In the third day?

He will raise us up and we shall live in his sight.

Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord.

His going forth is prepared as the morning.

He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and the former rain unto the earth.

And so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled the atmosphere for miracles and, briefly, we're gonna get into it a little bit deeper.

But it does take prayer.

But it takes more than prayer.

A lot of people just get hung up on pray, pray, pray.

But you know, there's a couple other elements that have to be put into action, and that's prayer, faith and obedience.

God doesn't do it all, we have our part to play, and so I'm gonna go ahead and say we have our part to play.

So prayer is where we just don't necessarily beg God for things.

Prayer is where we find out what we're gonna do about what's needed.

I mean, we're the body of Christ, we've got authority, we have the name of Jesus, we have the word of God, we have supernatural weapons.

So we're not like a lot of Christians that don't have a lot of revelation of these things and so they're just fixed on prayer.

Well good, I'm glad people are praying, but it takes more than prayer to have miracles.

And so this is a year of God's power, and I'm telling you God's power is available for supernatural occurrences.

I just believe harvest time is close.

I believe that, as bad as things look in America, I believe America is right for a revival.

I really believe that, when you look back at all the other revivals that have hit the earth, it was always needed.

It was like the.

You know what is revival?

It's the inrush of the spirit into a body that threatens to become a corpse.

So it's looking pretty bleak right before the revival.

You know the monitor's going beep, it's looking really bleak and you know things look kind of bleak right now, but I believe God's got a plan, amen.

So here in Zachariah, the prophet says pray for rain in the time of the latter rain, in the appointed time.

There's an appointed time for the rain, just like there was an appointed time for the day of Pentecost.

Pentecost wasn't random.

Look, God is not random.

God doesn't do random.

God does everything on time.

He has a Moed, he has an appointed time, a Cairo's moment.

That's the Greek Greek.

In the Hebrew it's Moed, it's an appointed time.

And so when we do pray and what is prayer?

Prayer is just fellowshiping with God you kind of know when things are gonna happen.

You already have a sense I shouldn't say a sense.

You have a spiritual perception that's more accurate than sense cause.

It's not a five sense thing, it's your spirit knows things when you hang out with God.

And so pray for rain in the time of the latter rain.

Now in Acts, chapter two, when we see that on the day of Pentecost they were all together in one place, in one accord, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, filled all the place where they were seated and cloven tongues like as fire came and sat on each of them and they were all filled with ahold of ghosts.

They all began to speak with other tongues as the spirit gave the mutterings.

The 120 there blessed virgin was there.

500 people knew about it.

According to 1 Corinthians 15, only 120 showed up, 24%, you imagine.

After Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to 500 people and 24% is all the results he got.

We shouldn't be too surprised that our results are less than what we expected.

I keep looking at all these red chairs, looking at me, and I expected them to be full.

If somebody had told me when I started the church 29 years ago, yes, you're gonna be preaching to 75 people on Sunday night, I would have thought, no, you're lying.

I would have expected a lot bigger crowd and I did.

But I'm not disappointed.

I'm just saying things don't always work out in our timing the way that we think, but I'm telling you the crowds are coming.

There's coming one last big revival, so and so when they came down out of the upper room, peter standing up, see, he was on the ground drunk and they were saying all these people were standing around, jews from every nation under heaven were there for the feast of engathering, feast of harvest.

That's the feast that it was.

It was an appointed time.

I mean, pentecost was right there.

God was strategic in His timing of displaying the power of the Holy Ghost and the birth of the church.

And technically, they had been saved already, because when Jesus breathed on them, receive you the Holy Spirit, who sends you forgive or forgiven, who sends you retain their retain.

So technically, they were already spiritually alive to God, but when they were filled with the Spirit, really technically, that's when the church began.

And so all these Jews said what meaneth this?

All these guys are just drunk.

Peter standing up, see, had to get up off the ground.

He's drunk too.

He said these are not drunken, as you suppose, but this is that Spoken by the prophet Joel.

And Joel spoke of the rain, the former rain and the latter rain in the first month.

And rain, briefly, is miracles.

Rain is miracles, rain, rain.

When God sends the rain, he sends miracles.

Everybody say rain equals miracles.

What do we need?

Miracles are not.

If they needed miracles in the first century AD in order to get anybody saved, how much more do we need them in the 21st century?

I mean, we need miracles for this generation.

They're not gonna get saved just because we argue with them or just because we, you know, tell them that they're going to hell and all of that?

No, they're gonna get saved when they see the miracles.

I just think about one of these transgender weirdo, totally demonized people.

Just the demons coming.

You know, the demoniac, all those demons came out of that demoniac and the last picture we have is he was clothed, sitting at the feet of Jesus in his right mind.

He said no, I want to follow you, jesus.

Can I go with the disciples?

I want to follow you.

Now.

Go back to your hometown and tell what great things the Lord has done for you.

Ha ha ha.

Oh, let's lift our hands right now.

We need miracles for these people.

They need a witness.

They need a witness that God is truly alive.

They don't believe it.

They're the product of their upbringing.

They're the product of their misinformation, the junk they got on Snapchat.

So he said pray for rain in the moed and the time and I really believe we're coming into that time to let God know we desire.

You know you always pray for what you greatly desire.

You know you don't.

Do you pray for things you don't want?

No, so Jesus said in Mark 11, 24, what things, therefore?

What things?

So, wherever you desire, you desire, you desire.

When you pray, believe you've received them, you shall have them.

That's what he said about praying.

He said you need to desire something.

In 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, you know, the Paul the Apostle said that we ought to desire the gifts.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

We ought to earnestly covet the best gifts.

What are the best gifts?

The gifts that will bring miracles to this generation.

So we have to kind of.

What I'm saying is we need to stir ourselves up to desire miracles.

Now we have them, but we need more.

It's not gonna bankrupt heaven to give us more miracles.

It's not wrong to be on record with God letting him know we're hungry for more miracles.

We want to see, not just so we can see a bunch of fireworks and just get blessed in a blessed me club.

No, we want the miracles to get a harvest.

Remember, the rain comes down and we get grass.

What is grass?

Well, that's a harvest.

It's a harvest.

Everybody say the harvest.

So you always pray for what you greatly desire.

So you know, I like to say these things because I want to stir your desire up and stir your desire to pray for these things up.

But praying alone is not enough.

There's other elements that we'll get into, but it starts with prayer.

It started with prayer on the day of Pentecost.

They had been praying for 10 days.

So then in Hosea the word says when is the time of the latter rain?

Well, it's after two days.

And during the third day?

Well, it's 2023.

2000 was the second day.

We're in the third day.

Right now we're 23 years into the third day.

We're living in the third day.

So really, according to Hosea, we're accurate if we're praying for the rain now because it's time for it.

It's time.

It's time for the rain to start falling.

What is rain?

Miracles, miracles.

And then it says Jesus will come as the rain.

Talk about a miracle.

That's when he comes for the church.

It's talking about coming for the church.

He's gonna rapture the church off the face of the earth.

You know they've already got all the lies made up to cover for us being gone.

They're talking about the UFOs.

You know they're gonna say the UFOs.

We've been invaded by Mars and they've hijacked all these people.

That's good riddance.

So, thank God, they got rid of all the Christians.

They'll be glad.

Just like you know, when Israel marched out, the army of God marched out of Egypt.

They were glad when they left.

They were glad.

They're gonna be even gladder when we're gone.

Oh, they're gonna be so overwhelmed, even though some of them are gonna fall out of the sky.

Just think about an airplane flying and all the pilots leave.

The pilots are born again Christians and they go.

They don't have as far to travel as everybody else.

They're at 33,000 feet.

So whoop, that's gonna be a revolting development for a lot of people, but they'll have the lies all lined up to say to cover for our sudden departure.

So prayer prepares the atmosphere for signs, wonders and miracles.

There needs to be an atmosphere.

There was an atmosphere today.

What was the atmosphere?

Well, the high pressure that's been over this part of Texas.

For what?

Two weeks, given a such hot weather.

It's not global warming, it's just high pressure.

It's a meteorological event that happens from time to time.

There's nothing about global warming.

That's stupid.

It is not global warming, it's a high pressure ridge that was sitting right over Texas, and hot air sinks, you know.

And there's no there.

Rain went all the way around.

It Missed us for a couple of weeks, but we got it back today.

Why?

Because the atmosphere got charged up.

I mean, once that thing moved off to the east, we were ripe for the rain, the atmosphere was perfect this afternoon.

We had the afternoon heating, we had the humidity that had been built up, no more high pressure, you know resisting that and boom, we had the right mix.

Well, that's kind of that way in the spirit.

Prayer prepares the atmosphere for signs, wonders and miracles.

Clouds with lightning Praise God.

We want some lightning to go with it.

So let's look at some Bible examples.

Let's look at Mark, the sixth chapter, and this is talking about Jesus' hometown.

He went back there to preach in his hometown and they were offended at him.

They had grown up with him and they, who does he think he is?

And in verse five it says he could there, didn't, say he wouldn't, said he couldn't, he could there do no mighty work.

This is Jesus we're talking about.

He could there do no mighty work, say that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk and healed them.

One version says of minor ailments.

Here's Jesus who had raised the dead, opened deaf ears, opened blind eyes, healed the leper, healed the dumb man, and yet in his own hometown he could there do no mighty work.

And then it says and he marveled verse six.

Because of their unbelief.

He marveled and he went about the village's teaching and he called unto him the 12 and began to send them forth by two and two and gave them power over unclean spirits and commanded them, and so they started teaching.

So unbelief is curable.

Unbelief is curable by the teaching and preaching of the Word of God.

That's exactly what Jesus did.

He didn't go on a sabbatical, he didn't take a leave of absence, he just said all right, let's get busy teaching these people, let's get busy putting out the Word of God and teach them and change the atmosphere of unbelief to faith.

You're getting this now.

So if we're gonna have an atmosphere of miracles, we're gonna have to have an atmosphere of faith, and that only comes by what Preaching and teaching the Word of God.

And the Bible says in Mark 4, 23,.

Jesus went about teaching and teaching the Word, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

So the way that Jesus ministered was not just healing everything that moved, he majored on teaching and preaching and then healing.

I mean he didn't just have a healing meeting.

He didn't just have a healing meeting.

He didn't have a healing meeting.

He didn't just stand up there and say, okay, everybody's sick, come on up here.

No, he did some teaching and some preaching and then the healing happened.

Atmosphere for miracles.

He removed unbelief and the atmosphere change.

That's exactly what we did in Austin.

We did that at the Capitol and we didn't even know that's what we were gonna do.

See, god had this secret.

He had this way of getting it done.

We prayed and we prayed and we prayed and we prayed and suddenly God opened the door and he began to move on.

Steve Toath.

And Steve Toath had a vision.

Because of where he goes to church, that vision has been implanted in him.

He hears it when he's going to church.

He doesn't hear this typical bunch of nonsense.

I mean separation of church and state.

Here.

He is an elected official and he got in there that you know what we need to have church at the Capitol.

These people need to hear the Word of God.

They need to have the Holy Ghost move in their midst and God put it in his heart.

The next thing you know, tara hears about it.

The next thing you know, we get involved.

And I mean we just jumped through the door.

I mean, the door had a little crack and you just busted through it and the next thing, you know, the atmosphere has changed.

Why?

Because of the teaching and the preaching and the move of the Holy Ghost and having God ordained pastors there that have an anointing.

It wouldn't have worked with just the, you know, with just the paratroop ministry.

You know there's plenty of those kind of ministries there.

There's all kind of good, solid, bible believing, you know, charities and all of that that are there to stand for good, but they're not really the pastor.

The pastors had to get there and they did.

The atmosphere changed.

Well, you know, there was still battles, there was still all the Satanists and all the LGBTQ people were there, but it didn't the atmosphere.

They couldn't get their job done, they couldn't do it.

They couldn't get their evil to work, they couldn't get their incantations to work, they couldn't get the spirits motivated to stop anything.

I mean this was a pretty successful session.

Pretty successful session.

Was it perfect?

Well, no, not ever perfect, but we had a lot of good things done, changed the atmosphere.

He removed unbelief.

All right, let's look at Mark seven, next chapter over, talking about the atmosphere for miracles, verse 33.

So Jesus has got this man that's deaf.

They brought him a deaf man and he had an impediment in his speech and they asked him I'll put your hands on him.

Lay your hands on him, jesus, verse 33.

And he took him aside from the multitude.

He took him aside.

In other words, he didn't do it in front of the multitude, he took him away from the multitude.

Well, where was this?

Well, this was in the coast of Tyre, and Sidney Came to the Sea of Galilee, came to the midst of the coast of Decapolis.

Decapolis is where the demonized man with a legion of demons was from.

He was from the 10 cities.

Decapolis means 10 cities.

That area was demonized.

That area was under an unclean spirit that had taken up residence in one person, and so it was a hard place.

It was a place where the atmosphere wasn't right and the people weren't right.

And so Jesus didn't do this miracle in front of the people.

He took him aside, removed him from the unbelief and he took him aside Verse 33.

He put his fingers in his ears, he spit and touched his tongue.

Boy, wow, I guess the health department would have closed him down if it happened.

Harris County, they're spitting on people's tongues over there in glorious way, charge, shut them down.

I, the queen of Harris County, lena Hidalgo, do now pronounce judgment over thee.

No, all right.

And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said unto him Ephrath, which is be opened, and straightway his ears were opened, the string of his tongue was loose and he spoke plain and he charged them.

Don't tell anybody, they're not ready, don't waste this on them.

Kind of blows your mind, doesn't it?

They say God knows better than we do.

He knows where the riparvest is, he knows where the listening ears are, he knows where the hunger is, and the main thing is that you've gotta be sensitive to that atmosphere.

All right, the last one here is Mark five back another way, jay Iris's daughter is one of my favorites and so he's.

Jay Iris has come to Jesus and of course he got held up with the woman, the issue of blood.

He had to wait on that.

He said, please come, my daughter's near death come, and Jesus.

You know he didn't get in a hurry and on the way you can imagine, I mean, here's this woman with the issue of blood had to go through all of that first and he's on his way to see Jay Iris's daughter, and he's held up and Jesus just said don't be afraid, only believe, don't be afraid, only believe, just only believe, don't be afraid.

And so then they get through with the woman, with the issue of blood, daughter of our faith that made the whole go in peace, the whole of thy plague.

Here comes the ruler of the synagogue from hometown, so I don't trouble the master any longer.

Your daughter's now dead.

Good news, I'm the bearer of good news.

Your daughter died.

You're too late.

Jesus had to tell him again don't be afraid, just believe, just believe.

Looks like it's too late, but Jesus said no, no, it ain't.

And so they get there.

And he didn't allow anybody to follow him except Peter, james and John.

And so they came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue so I mean, he's a high muckity muck, he's in charge in that area, verse 38, and seeeth the tumult and them that wept and wailed greatly.

And when he was come in he said unto them why do you make this a do?

And weak, the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth.

And they laughed him to scorn.

So they went from crying and weeping to laughing in scorn.

I mean, how sincere are they?

How sincere are they?

That's an atmosphere not only of unbelief but scorn and derision.

They're there for all the wrong reasons.

But when he had put them all out, I loved that.

I would have loved to have been there to see that Jesus grabbed them by the nape of the neck and said get out.

If it had time he'd probably made a whip, all right.

So he didn't know.

And he takeeth the father and the mother of the damsel and them that were with him, peter James and John See, so just a select group.

He controlled the atmosphere before he ministered to this dead little girl.

She's dead and he's gonna raise her.

But he wanted to make sure the atmosphere was cleansed of any unbelief and any mockery.

Amen.

And so he took the damsel verse 41, by the hand and said under her, talitha kumi, which is being interpreted damsel, I say under thee, arise and straightway.

The damsel Arose and walk, for she was the age of 12 years.

And they were astonished with a great astonishment that's an understatement.

And he charged them straightly that no man should know it.

See, don't tell anybody.

Don't tell anybody.

They don't deserve to know that.

They're a bunch of mockers.

We think we have to publish everything, but really, you know we need to let the Holy Ghost tell us what to publicize and what not to.

So, and then he said, you know, give her something to eat.

She said she's dead, she needs something to eat now.

And so you know he didn't do it all.

I mean, you know he didn't manufacture the food and put it in her stomach.

I mean they had to feed her.

So here in the book of Acts we talked about this.

But the rain that is talked about in the book of Acts, peter said this is that spoken by the prophet Joel.

And what did the prophet Joel talk about?

Well, he talked about the farmer and the latter rain together coming in the first month.

Every Jew that was there knew exactly who Joel was and what Joel said and what the significance of it was.

And so they had prayed for 10 days.

The miracle of 3000 Jewish people getting saved on the day of Pentecost.

That's a miracle, because some of these same 3000 were the same ones that said crucify him.

Talk about hard hearted.

They got saved when they saw speaking in tongues, see the gifts of the spirit.

And then in Acts, chapter two, let's go back to Acts talking about that atmosphere for miracles.

And they had prepared the atmosphere for the rain or for the miracles.

Verse 42, this is after all, those people got saved and it says they continued steadfastly.

Verse 42 in the apostles teaching and fellowship and breaking of bread and in prayers.

They continued to pray together and fear came upon every soul.

Many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.

See what is that?

See, the rain is still falling.

It came from the continual prayer of the saints and all that believed were together.

They had all things common.

They sold their possessions and goods, part of them, to all men.

Every man had need.

They, continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved.

So we see that we've got prayer, continued in prayer daily and you had signs and wonders and miracles.

And then in Acts, chapter two and chapter three, that brought us the notable miracle of the man at the gate, beautiful, and 5,000 people got saved that day when they saw the miracle of the lame man that had been lame from his mother's womb for 38 years.

Well, see, they'd prayed, that, they'd prayed the atmosphere in, and 5,000 men got saved, had to be.

20,000 people got saved as a result of that one miracle.

And so then, in Acts 4-24, they all lifted up their voice in one accord, say there was persecution because of that miracle.

You know, the high-muckety mucks wanted to shut them down.

You better not be teaching and preaching in that name.

You're trying to bring this man's blood on us.

Oh, if it's out of order, you just go ahead and judge that.

We can't help.

But teaching, preaching that name, we're gonna keep doing it.

And if they had a prayer meeting, they all lifted up their voice not voice, is.

They lifted up their voice in one accord.

And what did they pray?

They said Lord, behold their threatening and grant unto thy servants verse 29, with all boldness, we may speak your word by stretching forth your hands to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done in the name of your holy child, jesus.

They prayed for miracles.

They prayed for the rain, didn't they See?

That was a theme.

I mean, they prayed, but they didn't just pray.

They didn't just pray, they did some other things.

They had to get out and do something, and so when they had prayed, the place was shaken.

Where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.

They spoke the word of God with boldness and they had all the things common and nobody had any needs.

All the needs were met Verse 33, with great power.

This is the year of God's power.

Great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

Not one among them lacked.

That's coming.

There's coming an influx.

There's a Canaan land check coming our way.

Great prosperity, great power.

So let's get to the three things that I have for you the atmosphere for miracles.

I've already mentioned them, and that's prayer, faith and obedience.

And, of course, we've talked about the prayer.

They did make the prayer they prayed.

I mean, prayer is important.

Pray for miracles, cry out for them, desire them, stir yourself up to desire them.

You know Jesus said what things, whoever you desire, you have to desire them.

You have to desire them for the right reasons.

What is the reason?

Well, you want them, not because you need them yourself.

You need to have something proven to you.

You want them to give something, to witness other people.

You want to see a harvest.

You want the grass in the field.

Amen.

You always pray for what you greatly desire.

You know I pray for the gifts of the spirit to manifest.

I pray God give me an unclean and utterance to speak as I should help me to expound the Word of God so they can understand it.

Lord, confirm your word with signs, wonders and miracles.

I always pray that.

I pray that every time I'm up here.

Before I get here, I mean I pray that in my prayer time.

And then the second aspect is remove all unbelief.

Remove all unbelief.

We want an atmosphere for miracles.

We got to get rid of unbelief.

We got to get rid of the naysayers, and so that means yourself.

Let's work on ourselves.

Let's get rid of any kind of unforgiveness, competition, arrogance.

You know things in first Corinthians 13, the law of love.

I mean you know we need to obey the law of love.

No ifs, ifs, ands or buts.

So let's get rid of anything that would hinder the atmosphere.

And then sometimes people just need a little help.

You're gonna have to take.

You know prayer alone is not gonna do it.

You have to get out and get in the witness chair.

Years ago I hadn't been saved but about a year went to a place called Mo Ranch.

It's on the Guadalupe River On the other side of Curve, I'll up, I forgot exactly where it's at, but it's a big ranch methodist, I think, on it.

And the full gospel business man.

I was active in full gospel business man fellowship international for some years and I was their president of the Conroe chapter for a while.

This is before I was anything anybody, I just was along for the and they didn't believe in it retreating, they believed in advancing.

So we had an advance, not a retreat, no retreats, we had advances.

And so we were there, got there on a Friday night and got up early.

You know we had a meeting that night and back Ben Kenslo's son was the main speaker, a brother, ben Kenslo's, but anybody remember Ben Kenslo from 700 Club?

Well, his little brother was a black power, grew up in Uvalde, him, and Ben grew up in Uvalde, Texas, not Uvalde.

Uvalde is what I've always called it, so it's what everybody that I know calls it Uvalde, all right, but the news media here have to say Uvalde.

They also say San Felipe.

Well, it's San Felipe, I'm sorry to tell you.

Anyway, it's another thing.

It's a pet peeve of mine.

It's refurio, not refuio, it's refurio.

The Irish couldn't say refuio, so they said refurio, that's R-E-F-U-R-Y-I-O, fury, refuio.

So.

But his little brother was there, and I say little brother, he was built like a Donner, so I mean that guy was massive, his arms were bigger than my legs and you know, he gave his testimony.

He said you know, I grew up hating white people and I thought, man, I hope you don't notice that I'm white, I was.

There was no black people but him.

He's the only black person there.

They were all lily white, all of them.

There's white supremacy right there in my ranch.

But he was so sweet, he was so anointed.

I mean, that guy was amazing, met him, I got to meet him.

He just hugged me.

I thought he was gonna squeeze the life out of me, but I always liked his brother being.

Didn't you enjoy him?

I just thought he was a great man of God, and so his little brother was too.

But when you get saved, you get released.

I mean, you know, it's just a transforming work.

So anyway, the next morning I got up real early before daylight and I was walking along the river and a prayer spirit fell on me and travail hit me.

I didn't, wouldn't even, I'd never had that happen.

I'd heard of it, but I just began to weep.

I fell to my knees weeping at the river's edge, balling and weeping and wracked, and just man, wow, I was about 10 or 15 minutes and it was over and I thought, wow, that was phew.

I mean, I felt like I'd been in the Maytag on spin shot cycle, you know.

And then I met this guy, tall, thin guy that was there at the camp, and so we introduced it in ourselves to each other, and he said, yeah, I'm from Utopia.

I said Utopia.

Well, my brother lives there, he lives down the road in Vanderpul.

Yeah, I've been to Utopia, sure have.

Wow, that's kind of cool.

He said well, I used to live in Utopia, I just moved back there.

I've been in Houston for about a year.

I was in Houston until God burned my house down it was the wrong thing to say, I mean and he just didn't pause, he just kept on talking and finally he took a breath.

I looked at him and I said God didn't burn your house down, the devil did Just like that.

You know, I could have done a little kinder, but that was my first message that I had preached.

I just preached the message.

It was very short, very to the point, bam.

And so I didn't think about how it sounded, but it didn't sound very nice.

It sounded kind of brutal.

Actually God didn't burn your house down, the devil burned it down and he looked like I had hit him like Mike Tyson.

If you ever seen Mike Tyson land that overhand left that, he would come around like this.

He'd be crouching like this in the boxing ring and he would come around like this and hit you on the jaw, bam, and he'd knock you out.

I mean I just every fight he'd knock people out.

It's just amazing.

Back in the 80s, if you never watched Mike Tyson, he's crazy, but anyway, he was a great boxer.

And that guy looked like I had hit him with a left hook.

His eyes rolled back.

He went like this he stepped back, his head went up like this, and I thought, oh, what's next?

What's he gonna do?

He's bigger than me.

I might just turn, and not where he hits me into the river.

I don't think you know, if he knocks me out and I'm in the river, it might be bad, you know.

So I thought he'd looking for a way to circle a little bit and get out of the direct assault and then he started growling.

He said like that, like that.

And he just and my eyes got big.

I thought, what's he about to do?

Ooh, you're right, he's right there.

And I said, oh, thank God.

So later that morning he walked down the aisle, kinslow gave the altar call.

He got saved that morning and that night we all he was one of the group that came up to get filled with the Holy Ghost and we all divvied up.

So, okay, you been, you know, get somebody that needs help.

And I wound up standing behind him and we went outside and I laid hands on him and he just instantly started speaking.

At the top of his lungs, I mean, it was reverberating off the hills and he was speaking.

It sounded like Chinese to me.

Oh yeah, that's okay, I don't know.

You know, just go man, just knock me down.

So sometimes people need a little instruction.

I counsel you to be a little nicer than I was.

My first go around.

They just they don't know, they don't know what you know.

You can help people.

It's not preaching, it's just instructing.

Sometimes you can remove unbelief by just gentle instruction.

Are you getting this now?

Remove all unbelief and get the atmosphere cleansed.

That's why I teach on faith and healing and authority so often, because I want you motivated and instructed and ready to go, ready to sit in a witness chair.

And the last one is obedience, prayer, faith and obedience.

Without obedience, nothing happens.

Somebody said the book of Acts was written because the apostles acted, they obeyed, they didn't just sit around praying.

Some people, just you know there's groups of these denominations, I won't mention their names, but you know some of them just pray, pray, pray.

That's all they want to do is pray for revival, pray.

Well, you know what you need to instruct people, you need to remove unbelief and have a message to people.

You have to sit in a witness chair and tell people about Jesus.

And then you've got to do what the Bible says Do lay hands on people.

That's the believer's ministry.

Laying hands on the sick, laying hands on people, get them healed.

That's the.

That is the best way to get right down to business with somebody, cause almost everybody needs health and needs healing and almost anybody and everybody is opens a door for you to tell them more about Jesus.

You can get them healed first and then get them saved.

I've heard this religious goof balls try to say oh no, I, never, I.

We full gospel business and we would have had businessmen would give their testimonies.

And I heard this bank president from West Texas I think he was from Lubbock and and he gave his testimony and he made this statement.

He said, oh, I never pray for anybody to get healed until I get them saved, until I lead them in the sinner's prayer.

And I thought that that you're leading people in the sinner's prayer and they don't even mean it.

They don't even really mean to get saved, they just want to get healed.

So I knew he was wrong.

See, thank God that I went to Lakewood.

Thank God I had a pastor that knew the word of faith.

Thank God I knew better than this doofus.

He did more harm than good.

You know, you can just be so religious and you can close the door on people.

I mean they don't get saved just because of a sinner's prayer.

They got a water, get saved.

They got a want Jesus.

You know what makes them hungry for him getting healed, boy, that'll.

You know, when they get healed they're ready to go ready, ready, right now.

So I think about when the persecution happened, about.

There was great persecution because of miracles and stuff, and so everybody left except the apostles and Stephen went and preached among the Jews and he started and they gave heed to the things he said, seeing and hearing the miracles which he did.

He had a miracle ministry.

And what was he?

Was he a preacher?

No, he was an usher.

And he got to meddling in their affairs so much they got some mad when he started telling them how the cow ate the cabbage.

They stoned him to death but he obeyed.

See, he didn't sit in Jerusalem with the apostles in the safety of Jerusalem.

He got out.

He got out and put his life on the line.

No doubt he was stirred to go and get a harvest.

He had something to offer and he got out there and did it.

And then you got Philip.

Philip went down to Samaria and preached Christ unto them.

Was he the evangelist?

Not then.

He was an evangelist later, but he was not an evangelist when he went to Samaria.

He was just an usher.

He was a believer doing the believer's ministry and the whole city was filled with joy when they heard and saw the miracles which he did.

He says because spirits came out of many shrieking with a loud voice and many that had palsy, many that were lame, were healed.

They didn't get everybody healed, but he got certain kinds of healing done and he just what a usher.

Everybody say the believer's ministry.

So when you obey God, he will confirm his word with science following.

It's not about how holy you are, it's not about how much you know, it's not you know what you know.

I said you know what you know and that's usually if you go into this church that's usually a whole lot more than most people know, because you just like tonight you've been around something that very few people get, that when the Holy Ghost operated here earlier, man just to be here for that, just to watch, that be part of that Whoo, that's invaluable.

So give your testimony, tell people about Jesus, lead them to Jesus and lay your hands on sick people, and so then the atmosphere comes from the prayer, the prayer and the faith and the miracles, and God will do his part if we'll do ours.

Come on, lift your hands and receive tonight the atmosphere for miracles.

Father, we thank you that you are preparing the atmosphere right here in the church.

We're preparing the atmosphere right now for the rain, for the miracles that we need to reach this world.

We want to be part of that last great end time, revival end gathering what you call in the book of James, the precious fruit of the earth, that you have long patience for it until you receive the early and the latter rain.

Glory to God, it's coming, hallelujah.

I said it's coming, amen, we'll end this tonight.

Well, come on, let's just praise the Lord, thank youلك.