The Coming Rain!

Joy listening to the Cross Kingdom Sermon of the Week.

We helpe you enjoy this message.

From Justin Carpenter. I'm really excited about next Sunday because

we have one of our elders that are going to

be teaching that we've not heard from for a long time.

Not saying any name, Sean Kendrick, but it's going to

be good.

Ah. How is y'all's week.

Probably better than those children in that room up there

right now, or maybe it wasn't any better. Maybe that's

what some of you all sound like in the spirit.

It's okay. We call it when when, when we whine in.

Our prayer time as adults, that's actually spiritual. It's called

intercessory whining, and it's legal to do that from time

to time. Three of you, got it? Okay, that's important. Okay.

It's funny. I always I always think I'm gonna have

a little more time to unpack what I was gonna

try to unpack more first service, and then we end

up with the same amount of time to unpack.

So that's good though.

So I want to talk to y'all a little bit

this morning about the coming rain.

We have been talking about.

God moving in unprecedented ways for quite a while now.

And we I've used the term tipping point.

You know, we at the beginning of the year we

talked about what does twenty twenty five look look like?

And so far it seems to be painting out with

these little key points as far as exposures and transition

and standing in the gap for others. Anybody find themselves

standing in the gap on behalf of others this year

more so.

Than any other time.

And uh, and remember it was fighting for those that

can't fight for themselves.

I know that personally, we're seeing that in different ways.

And you know, when culture decays and and begins to

fall apart, and and many times you can't tell the

difference between the church and the world, God seems to

come along and hit us with a B.

Twelve shot called revival.

And there there have been major moves of God really

in the last probably four major moves of God in

the last five hundred years. And we had some friends

in this weekend. They just left this morning. They passedor

a church in Lubbock, and he's from Canada a and

although he didn't say a much because he's been in

the South so long. But this couple actually met and

the Brownsville Revival Pensacola Revival in the mid nineties.

And I said this earlier.

Lisa and I met in Pensacola, but we met on

the Cessationist side of town, and while the Revival of

was blowing and going with the Continuoust, we were on

the other side of the independent Fundamental King James Only School.

And I would hear whispers of these crazy people across

the street at Pensacola doing all sorts of weird stuff,

and I, believe it or not, I had no idea

what they were talking about.

And you fast forward. This was ninety six when we met.

You fast forward. I'm sitting in my.

Dining room one Saturday morning, and all of a sudden,

the Holy Spirit falls on me and I get the

baptism of the Holy Spirit.

And as I begin to unpack.

That journey of what it meant to really walk in power,

because remember in John twenty, Jesus is resurrected. He looks

at the disciples and he tells them receive the Holy Spirit,

and he breathes on them, and they are the first

ones to be sealed with the Holy Spirit. But then

he turns around and tells them to terry to wait

until the Holy Spirit comes upon them for the empowerment

of ministry. We see that next so in and on

is not the same and the old Covenant, the Holy

Spirit would rest upon the select few priest King's prophets.

But and Moses cry of his heart was that everyone

would have the Holy Spirit. And all of a sudden

they're sealed with the Holy Spirit, just like every single

believer is. But not every single believer has the baptism

of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit resting upon them for

the empowerment of ministry. I've heard it said this way,

Christ in you for your sake, but Christ upon you

for others.

Are you with me? And we are at this tipping point, this.

Transition, which if y'all recall the dream I shared last

fall with the airplane going we were going through a

tight transition. Not everybody would make it through, but we

were headed to the tarmac Tuesday since our staff meeting.

All of a sudden, the Lord stirred that dream up

and said, you're through the transition, So I know things

are getting close. It's almost like when Elijah is praying

for rain. It's been what three and a half years

no rainfall? He says, no rain will fall except for

at my word, and he begins to pray, and he

prays seven times, and after the seventh prayer, guess what happens?

His servant sees a cloud like a fist. Right, So

then he goes and says, hey, go tell King Ahab

to get off the mountain.

Rain is coming.

And I want to say that there's a heavy rain

that's upon us. You can almost smell the ozone of

it coming. And it's going to be a suddenly, and

I believe it's going to be an abrupt suddenly. We

need revival in the church as desperately as we needed it.

In the mid nineties, if not more.

Where you know, Toronto was so much about the father's heart,

and yet here we are today, what thirty some years later,

and we're in the most fatherless generation. We have little

boys trapped in men's body that don't know how to be.

Men, let alone know how to lead their homes.

And I've been really excited about the men's ministry here

and the upcoming book by Danny Silk being How to

Become a Dragon Slayer. I'm I'm personally on like chapter

four and this book is so relevant.

Okay, now I want to a little caveat.

You will hear us talk about different people in different books.

It does not mean we cross every T and dot

every I with those with these different people. Do you understand,

and it's okay? Do you know it's okay not to

agree with everybody with everything they say. Do you know

it's actually okay to still love them and be friends

with them? We should try it.

In the Church.

Acts three nineteen to twenty one. Repent therefore and be converted,

that your sins may be blotted out, so that the

times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,

that he may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to

you before, whom Heaven must receive.

Until the rapture. No, that's actually not what it says.

In whom Heaven must receive until the times of restoration

of all things, Jesus has to remain in Heaven until

the restoration of all things. In case you're wondering of

your eschatology, that verse right there kinda just messed up

some of the pretrib mindset that he could come at

any moment. That right there says, he can't come at

any moment that was free. What eschatology is right in times,

so it says, which God has spoken by the mouth

of his Holy prophet since the world begin amplified, says

it this way. So repent, change your inner self, your

old way of thinking, Regret past sins, and return to God.

Seek His purpose for.

Your life, so that your sins may be wiped away,

blotted out, completely erased, so that times of refreshing may

come from the presence of the Lord restoring you like

a cool wind on a hot day, that He may

send to you Jesus, the Christ, whom has been appointed

to you or for you, whom Heaven must keep until

the time for the complete restoration of all things about

which God promised through the mouth of his holy prophets

from ancient time. So if you're in the room this

morning and you hadn't given your life to Jesus, times

of refreshing can't come upon you. You can get moments

of reprieve, you can have moments where you feel happy,

but true spiritual refreshing is impossible. It's beyond your grasp

until you accept the Lord Jesus as your lord and Savior.

Today's a good day. By the way, if anybody in

here doesn't know him, there's a room full of people

that could actually help you out. So don't leave without

knowing for sure that you know him.

Y'all with me.

So revivals are initiated by several factors. There are two

components that every major revival features. Number One, it emphasizes

essential truths about the nature and purposes of God that

have been ignored discarded, are lost by successive generations of

professing believers and well meaning church leaders and theologians. A

m dad if you look at current statistics on the

different world views that the church has, y'all, the church

as a whole, the global church no longer has a

biblical worldview. Most people don't even believe in the supernatural anymore.

They have more faith in science than they do Jesus.

It's awful quiet, it's just mic on.

So second revival is spurred by a hungry and desperate

people who are seeking answers to their needs, the church's

needs and society's needs. You know, the kingdom is a paradox.

On one hand, it says you're blessed when you have

Godliness with contentment, it says, is great gain. But on

the other hand, it says that we're blessed when we

hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Will be filled. So the question is.

How hungry are you this morning? How desperate are you

in a good way?

For the Lord Jesus?

Where does he when crisis hits? What plan is he?

Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, kind of Plan A,

but more Plan B. Revival becomes a mobile, transferable and

hard to trace reality. Instead of impacting just thousands, it

can begin to impact millions, transforming whole nations as it

moves throughout the world. These as this gentleman that wrote

this book in two thousand and seven on tsunami Waves

of Revival says, tsunami wave revivals are based upon divinely

revealed objective truths or commissions. They continue to stay on

track long after the founding leader is out of the picture.

Movements led by apostolic leaders without divinely initiated commissions get

off track quickly and often die out when the leader's gone.

You know, the real test of a vision when when

someone has given an apostolic vision, that vision will always

typically come to one person, but it's always carried by

a group a plurality. And if you try to build

something based off of a personality or a gift, when

that person's personality or gifting is out of the picture,

than the sheep scatter because they were actually following the

leader and not the vision from the Lord. And one

of the things that we burn for as a leadership

is when we talk about vision and mission with Cross Kingdom,

we're wanting you to see way beyond whoever's on stage

and actually see that the vision is an apostolic assignment

over a region, and each of you, as you step

into your places that God's called you to, can actually

be a part of stewarding this vision as we run

together in unity. It's and my hope, you know, after

I'm one hundred and twenty years old and I graduate

to Heaven, my hope is that it continues to grow

like Streams Ministries. For instance, John Paul died in two

thousand and fifteen and here we are ten years later,

and Streams went through a reconstructioning season, a rebuilding season,

and Streams is still here today and still having a

global impact because there was a vision there that a

group of people caught and they continue to carry the baton.

I was with the youth group this as Wednesday. We

got anybody in the youth group from Wednesday.

So a couple of kids, what is this? Are you

raising your hand or hiding younger?

Yeah, oh, well the yaggs came in. That's what the

youth the group, the young adults and I would. Kim

asked me to talk to them about prayer, specifically praying

for people, you know, getting words of knowledge, hearing the Lord,

and praying for people. And I have not youth pastored

in a very long time, and I felt like the

principal coming into school and it was extremely extreme. I

was like, man, these guys, it's hard to keep their attention.

I'm like, it just makes me that much more thankful

for Kim and the job she does. And but we

we were talking about prayer and I asked the kids,

I said, hey, I said, how many of you know

somebody that's battling with suicide right now?

With suicidal thoughts?

And probably ninety percent of the youth group raised their hands. Y'all,

this is like heads out of the sand. This is

the stuff our kids in seventh and eighth grade are

dealing with and then how many of these kids don't

have an actual family where mom and dad are both

in the home. We there's such a gap to be

filled by the church. The church is supposed to be

taking care of the orphans and the widows and feeding

the poor. And we get so ticked off at welfare

and the way the government handles things. But the church

dropped the ball a long time ago when it came

to taking care of the poor. And then now you

have literal ministries that their whole focus is to take

care of the poor, when all the churches are supposed

to be carrying that weight to some degree. And as

I anyways, as I was ministering to these kids or

teaching them, uh, where'd Kylie go? Kyler? Here are you

hiding here in the back? So where's your where's your?

Where's Braiden? Okay, good Braiden. If you're watching on the

live stream, I'm sharing.

Your prayer testimony.

So her son Braiden was sitting back there. He said, hey, Braiden,

come up here, he you know, bashfully comes up and.

Which one, uh you got prayed for?

Yeah, So miss Scruggs was in the back, not mom

daughter and her knee was bummed. And so she came

up and we had Braiden come up. Braiden and Braiden

very timidly prayed this prayer. It was hard to hear.

And she checks her knee and it's like halfway better.

I think Braiden was more shocked than anybody that he

prayed that, and something happened. And then I go, well,

pray one more time, I said, Jesus prayed twice. You know,

the guy saw men like trees prays the second time,

her being how old are you? Fourteen? Yeah, jumps off

the stage. Get older, you don't do that stuff because

it hurts for a week. Jumps off the stage and

all the pains out of her knee. And then and

so Braiden, Braiden goes, I was like, well, dude, what

do you think about that? He goes, that was cool,

and then he told his mom youth group was good.

But God is not done with this generation, this next generation.

That even though it seems extremely dark in some aspects

as a church, it's our invitation to begin to fill

that gap.

Y'all.

You have a responsibility on this earth. It says the heavens,

even the heavens are the lords, but He's given the

earth to the sons of men. There's a responsibility of

calling over your life that he wants you to fulfill.

And guess what it's going to be uncomfortable. It's God

is going to ask things of you that you don't

want to give him.

Period.

So this best day now crap can fly out the window.

You're supposed to take up your cross daily and follow him.

If you're taking up your cross, denying yourself and following him,

then there's a level of us being uncomfortable, feeling the

splinters of the cross by denying ourselves. And we can

walk and we can do good things, but is it

actually what God's asking us to do. The worst thing

in the world would be for you to have the

applauses of men your whole life and stand before Jesus

and he goes, great job.

But I never called you to do that.

An understanding of the tsunami waves of revival that sweep

through church history and the benefits that each one brings

to the Church and society has enormous power to pursit.

I did this first service. I couldn't split this word out.

Precipitate greater unity in the body of Jesus Christ. What

God has begun to show in the years file all right,

so this is the gentleman that wrote the book, not

me because I never went to Toronto. What God has

begun to show me in the years following my experience

in Toronto is that when His power is released in

unprecedented ways, physical manifestations happen. Through these, he gets the

attention of spiritually hungry people and they flock to meetings

where God's presence is moving.

Y'all.

When God starts moving, I mean, I've been in meetings

where they were intense. It's just those meetings didn't carry

on day after day after day. But I've been in

little flash points of outpouring, if you will. There's two

things that happen. If you have any influence of a

religious spirit, it's going to get exposed. Because when God's

power starts moving on your body, you react, and sometimes

you're not in charge of how you react.

And when His power.

Moves, everybody responds differently. And the danger is for us

because it makes us uncomfortable, because we are dignified and

we are in control. Lord, I want an outpouring like

this the Frozen Chosen, but it doesn't happen that way.

When God starts moving, God starts pouring out. It's a

war zone, y'all. And what happens is some people will

focus on a demonic manifestation and lose the big picture

that it's a battlefield. People are getting healed, people are

getting delivered, Miracles are happening, signs are happening.

All of these things are.

Happening in this location where Jesus manifests himself to such

a degree that you are absolutely overwhelmed by his presence

and what may take you fifteen years to try to

deal with because you're really afraid to surrender and trust him.

It's burned up in a moment. We need it.

We need a move of God, not because of how

great we are, because of the mess that we've made

of it, and in his mercy and for his namesake,

we need this tipping point for the Lord to come

and rearrange and realign and refocus and recommission his bride.

The revival meetings of Wesley and Whitfield were accompanied by

displays of God's power, unusual manifestations, many similar to the

ones experienced in Toronto during the early eighteen hundreds. In

the then frontier state of Kentucky, the Cambridge Revival took place,

and those meetings, the power of God caused women's heads

to flick back and forth so violently that their long

hair came loose from the hairpins that held their hair

in place. I've had the same problem at times. Father, Father,

God really loves his children. He wants to He wants

us to know and experience his love.

Listen.

Not all the teaching, and if you have an orphan spirit,

not all the teaching in the world is going to

fix that until his liquid love comes into the core

of your being and you recognize you are adopt Now

you're not an orphan.

You can call him father.

You can connect with him as a father and know

that and have that security that you may never have

had with your earthly dead.

Oh all right now.

In the case of Reformation, the truth of salvation through

Jesus Christ's work on the Cross had been proclaimed through

men like Weacliffe and huss for three centuries before Luther

nailed his thesis exposing the same key truth on the

door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany, and revival exploded forth.

These revivals.

He's orchestrating the restoration and rediscovery of key truths so

the bride of Christ can make herself ready for the

marriage Supper of the Lamb. In the Reformation, it released

through Martin Luther. It restored the truth that Jesus Christ

is the only means of salvation. Because as the Disciples

had bishops or overseers, overseers overseers put into place, the

church began to go corrupt very quickly.

It didn't take a whole lot of time. And at

this point you.

Had sacred relics and works based salvation, and you had

a lot of issues going on. And Luther realized, hey,

we have gotten away from the Gospel of the Kingdom.

Now I don't agree with all the Luther's stuff.

He was one of the most anti Semitic ministers you

could ever come across. Hitler used some of his quotes

for his own campaign, but nonetheless I honor what the

Lord did through him. If you're looking for perfect theology,

going to find anybody on planet Earth that has it.

The First Great Awakening, released through John Wesley, restored the

truth that the Church needs to fulfill the Great Commission.

The third, the Pentecostal Revival, released through William Seymour at

Azuza Street, restored the truth about baptism, infilling in dwelling

and empowering of the Holy Spirit. There was testimonies of

Azusa Street that the glory cloud was so thick in

that room that literally the children would play hide and seek.

In it.

Number four, The.

Father Heart Revival, powerfully released in Toronto, restored the truth

that we need to experience the love of God the

Father and enjoy intimacy with him.

What if, imagine, just for a moment, what.

If these four major keys all come exploding together in

this next move, Because make no mistake, we're on the

cuffs of the greatest end time move of God, right

before He returns. And regardless of your eschatology, he is

coming back literally on the Mount of Olives. And none

of our eschatologies are so clean that there's not holes

in any of those presuppositions.

So whether you're pre tribe, post tribe, pre.

Wrath, doesn't matter. Whether you're pre millennial, I'm millennial post millennial.

The reality is He's coming back and we can all

agree with that. And y'all have you not noticed even

the birth pains in the natural with earthquakes, and just

in the last couple of weeks, with the increase of

these things, all of these birth pains are happening more

intensely closer together, and it's pointing.

To his return at some point.

And if you been sitting with a helmet hiding in

a cave waiting for the rapture, stop it. You're violating

the great commission. Take your helmet off, put the right

helmet on with the armor of God, and charge hell,

because we're to occupy until He comes. We're to be

the light and salt of a decaying world, of a

decaying culture. The confusion that is in our culture today,

and just the craziness. I mean, you can turn the

news on for three minutes and realize people have lost it.

I'm like, lost it, y'all. So guess what. There's your assignment? Yeah,

I know you're excited about that.

So spontaneous spiritual awakening by the Holy Spirit among professing

Christians in the churches, which results in deepened religious experience.

Holy living evangelism and missions, the founding of educational institutions

and social reform revival, should not be confused with evangelism,

which is the result of revival because you actually fall

in love with Jesus and then can't help but tell

others about him. See fears a horrible motivator. But just

like when you first started dating your spouse, there were

probably friends around you. They're like, okay, enough, we know

you're in love.

Stop it.

Anybody ever get starstruck when you're first dating. Wow, So

I guess we're gonna be doing a marriage conference next

Sunday because nobody's hands are up.

Oh, thank you. We are in trouble, people, Houston, we

have a problem. You're still starstruck. Good, that's why you

couldn't talk. Huh ha ha.

Listen Isaiah sixty four. It is God breaking into the

consciousness of men in majesty and glory. Isaiah, faced with

the people who had rebelled and grieved God's holy spirit,

pleads for such a manifestation.

Oh, that thou would.

Rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might

quake at your presence to make your name known to

your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence.

Isn't that what we're doing?

We're going Lord, Would you stretch forth your arm and

signs and wonders? Would you change the circumstances that I'm

in Actually some of you? He probably puts you there

to get your attention. Ooh, what if some of the

stuff you've been rebukens actually the hand of the Lord?

What if he's.

More concerned about your transformation than your comfort? What if

he's more concerned about your sanctification than your four oh

one k? What if he cares about your eternal life

more than your insurance?

And ad one f five.

The term Catholic used by the church mostly meant universal.

By the end of the second century, however, it had

come to mean both universal and Orthodox due to the

early controversies of the mid second century, such as Nosta,

the Teachings of the Teachings of Marcian, and also the

Monomontanists' movement. These controversies caused the church leaders to react

by developing tighter organization within their structure and by giving

more attention to the formulation of their beliefs. In the

early days, admission into the body was done simply through repentance,

acknowledging that Jesus was Lord, being baptized, and receiving the

Holy Spirit.

Those days were over.

Attention in the Western Church was beginning to focus on

the secession of bishops, the leader that Peter and Paul

had put in place, and they found the church in Rome.

Those pursuing purity.

Looked back to those bishops and to their direct sussessors

as a way to guarantee the purity of faith.

By three point forty.

One, the Council of Antioch led to the conferring of

highest prestige upon the bishops of the main cities of

that day, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and particularly Rome. These

bishops became known as patriarchs. As time went on, the

bishops or the Bishop of Rome became known as the

pope or father, which comes from the Greek word pepis,

and Rome became recognized more and more as the central residents, capital,

and standard bearer of true Christianity. The Church was losing

its way, slowly but surely as it grew in power

and influence, and three twelve Christianity was recognized officially by Constantine,

Emperor of the Roman Empire. Recognition brought favor and protection

to the Church, which resulted in vast numbers of pagans

joining church ranks. As the Roman Empire was Christianized, carnality

was growing in the Church as it tried to amalecate

the simple values and shoulditions of Christianity with so many

diverse cultures. Since nominal converts brought their pagan idol worship

with them, there was an attempt to satisfy this by

replacing their idols with images, relics, martyrs, bones, angels, Mary,

the Mother of God, and the recognized saints. The practice

of praying to the saints began during the late four hundreds.

Relics and images were paraded, kissed, and bowed to the

great Pagan temples were replaced by vast and cathedral filled

statue with statues our This is the history. The teachings

of Augustine augmented the ostendency of Roman pope by supporting

the value of the continuous lines of bishops succeeding the apostles.

So we started going into this law movement of decay.

But there was one burning light. The monostatic movements kept

the light burning. Many of these centuries there were both men,

both in religious systems and without, that were overwhelmed by

the debauchery they saw on the clergy of the church,

much like what's being exposed right now. I might add

lots of corruption within church leaders, sexual immorality, predators, people

that you didn't even think had an issue have literally

been exposed in the last few years of literally being predators.

And it's absolutely heartbreaking. But Matthew five six, Blessed are

those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall

be satisfied. See, we have a choice in this hour

with the Body of Christ and the choices. Are we

going to get jaded? Are we going to just throw

the baby out with the bathwater? Are we gonna throw

everything out? Are we gonna You know, I was finishing

Samuel first Samuel earlier this week or last week, and

I was just absolutely in tears again being reminded of

the issue of honor. David was chased by Saul for

his very life for fifteen years roughly. Saul was literally

trying to kill him and broke his promise to him

multiple times, and David would not touch Saul. God puts

technically in the natural, God puts Saul in his hands

more than once to test him, and he would not

take him out. He said, I will not touch God's annoyed.

In fact, later the guy that came back and said, oh, yeah,

I was his armor bearer and I thrust him through.

He goes, well, you shouldn't have touched his anointing and

he had him killed. Y'all in the midst of people

biting the dust. Leaders, don't throw out what God did.

You can honor God what he did through people and

not embrace their sin. It can be both. You can say, hey,

you know what, Saul was a stinker, but God used him,

and you don't forget what God did.

Because right now, from.

My viewpoint my seat, watching as exposures happen, there are

many in the church that are acting just as ugly

with their response to the exposures of leaders as the

sin of the leaders.

We're eating each other up.

Who needs a demon around If we're going to devour

each other, our stance needs to be God, have mercy

over the church. Lord, keep you're a fying Keep cleaning

the church up. Lord, and have mercy for the families

of these leaders that have just been exposed. Could you

imagine what Mike Bickle's wife feels right now?

Are her kids?

Presuming that she was not aware of the seventeen women. Yo,

God is cleaning house, not because he's an angry, angry person.

He loves his bride. He loves us, and he loves

us too much to leave us this way. It's way

too easy for us to get jaded right now. It's

way too easy for us to just begin to go

through the motions in this hour and just crop the

t's dot the eyes, and all of a sudden you

find yourself numb, numb to things, numb to Oh there's

another leader. I mean you just you just had other

stuff coming out about uh elevation, I mean uh uh Dallas.

Upper room.

In a in an abusive leadership with Michael Miller. The

all of these what scripture says, what's done in secret,

will be shouted from the mountaintops. And we, as the

body of Christ right now navigating through these murky waters,

as God continues to purify his bride, we are to

pray God, they need to repent. I don't mean put

put some of them back in their places, no, but

I mean our hearts should be broken and we should

be crying out for God to move in a mighty way.

We we should have a hunger and a contrite spirit

before the Lord.

And I just.

Wonder how hungry are we as a church right now?

Zachariah ten to one. Ask rain from the Lord in

the season of the spring. Rain from the Lord who

makes the storm clouds, and he will give them showers

of rain to everyone the vegetation in the field. Joel

two twenty three, Be glad, old children of Zion, and

rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given

the early rain for your vindication. He's poured down for

you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain. As before, y'all,

we need ladder rain again, we need heavy rain. We

can't force God's hand, we can't make him move, we

can't make.

Him do anything.

But we as believers can cultivate intimacy with him. As

his children. We can become as irresistible to him moving

in a mighty way as possible. And that's simply walking

with him. Walking in intimacy with him compromises such a

slow burn, y'all. We can grow cold so quickly and

not even realize it because we don't stewart our hearts.

We don't think about our thinking, we don't pro sas

all the stuff we've gone through. I literally Lisa and

I were headed to some friend's house Friday night, I think,

and I just told her. I was like, you know what,

I'm tired of hearing how flippant evil people can be

and what they're doing to other people, especially children. And

after twenty years of hearing at least twenty thousand hours

of what humanity is capable of doing, and then we

heard a few more things this week, even locally, and

I'm just like, I'm.

Tired of it.

I mean, it's absolutely heartbreaking, and I just begin to weep.

God is calling us higher in this hour. He's calling

us to get uncomfortable, y'all. He's calling us to get

uncomfortable and stand in the gap because there's tons of

people around us that don't have the ability to do

anything different.

But we're the church. We're the ones that are supposed

to be.

Taking care of the widows and the orphans and the poor.

We're supposed to be the light and the salt. We're

supposed to be the ones that are radiating brighter and

brighter because we're going from glory to glory. And I'm

afraid so many people in the global church today can't

get off their blessed assurance because of the narcissism that's

crept into the Western Church, and the antidote to that

is times of refreshing repentance first and foremost, because repentance

always proceeds revival. I want to challenge you this week

to ask the Lord, Lord, how can I seek you

in a way that I've never sought you in my life?

And then here's a real brave prayer. Lord, what have

you been trying to show me that I don't want

to hear?

Because oh yeah, we can.

We can justify our dysfunction and make it spiritual. What's

the Lord asking you? What's the Lord been asking you

to do?

You?

But you don't want to do it because it's uncomfortable,

because it's a sacrifice, because it's going to take time

out of your perfectly scheduled schedule. Y'all, we're running so

hard now in our culture, all all these advancements computers

and cell phones, the only thing that's done has led

us to burn out. I want to challenge you, stink

and put your phone on mute or stun.

For an hour each day. Did you catch it and

get alone?

You'll be shocked at what solitude with Jesus will do

for your soul. No worship music, nothing, just dead silence,

beholding him, sitting still before him, removing all the clamor,

all the all the chaos, the all the distractions, and

just sit still in silence.

And say, speak Lord.

And then when he does speak, don't run, because I

know how you revelatory people are. You get a little

bit of revelation, you want to go tell the world,

don't run, Stay in his presence, stay with him, because

when there's a company of people dripping with the oil

of intimacy and then you go out, people are going

to get zapped. If holiness could be transmitted in the

Old Covenant, don't leave that room lest you transmit holiness. Well,

I want you to infect Kerk County with Jesus like

a plague in a good way. And you don't have

to stay six feet apart. Don't have to wear a mask,

unmask the glory back you used to say. I want

Jesus to come out like Superman. She didn't here this morning.

All right, let's stand.

I haven't pertein pertein per team. You know, James admonishes

us to not be like the person who goes and

looks in the mirror, They look at what they look

like in the moment they walk away, they forget. I

hope every one of you hear my heart, Please, I

hope every one of you leave today perplexed, because all

of a sudden you get revelation to the reality that

the Lord is asking you to do something you don't

want to do. If we'll seek him in ways that

we've never sought him before, then we will absolutely see

him move in ways that we've never seen him move before.

That says that he draws close to those that draw

close to him. Father, I asked that you would shake

us up. Lord said, you'll shake everything.

Thank you for listening.

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