Bridging the Gap - Pastor Philip Steele - September 20th, 2026

Hi, my name is Ms.

Bell Steel.

Dr.

Philip and I want to thank you for listening to this message from Life of Faith Service.

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And uh I feel like it's important to constantly remind us that you know every service has a purpose.

And uh I began to learn that a number of years ago, and the Lord has always said to us uh concerning our ministry that Sunday evenings Sunday evening service uh were reserved for the moving of the Holy Spirit.

And that's that's not always just you know, I mean, uh sometimes we Pentecostal run everywhere and dance and uh you know, people are laid out and we don't get to preach, and and we understand that those things happen, but that's not the only moving of the Holy Spirit.

It's it's reserved for those things that He wants to say.

They're different services because there are things that the Lord wants to say to us.

I want to tonight, let's go to Genesis 18.

I want to look at this over the next little while on bridging the gap.

Bridging the gap.

And uh coming up next month, the 7th, 8th, and 9th, obviously, of October, we have our clothing the next generation conference uh with myself and and uh Prophet Ford, Prophet Leonard Ford and Pastor Calwell.

And uh I had uh initially wanted Pastor Caldwell to kick that off, but uh he has a uh event that he has to go to.

Uh remembering October 7th, uh of course October 7th is that first night of the meeting, and so um I'll probably be kicking it off, but nonetheless, they're both excited about being here.

And uh I felt there were some things that uh we needed to touch on moving that direction.

The uh throughout scripture we see the the emphasis that God places on passing on truth to a coming generation.

All right, passing on truth to a coming generation.

I was just at uh an event for the NACL, National Association of Christian Lawmakers, and uh one of the one of the speakers uh was uh Attorney General John Ashcroft, of course, he was senator, governor of Missouri, served under the Bush administration, uh spirit-filled, uh raised in the assembly of God, and he made a statement.

He said uh concerning uh virtues, he said the number one important thing, he said he was sitting back in the governor's office one day, and he said, you know, the thought kind of came into my mind that uh, you know, we've got a pretty good thing here.

And he said, the thought came to me that the number one responsibility is the passing on of virtues to the coming generation, the passing on of virtues to the coming generation.

Hallelujah.

And uh throughout scripture we see the emphasis God places on passing on truth to the coming generation, but we also see this emphasis of telling the coming generation what we have seen God do.

So that the Bible says, so that they will, your grandchildren and your children will rise up and tell it to a generation that's not even born yet.

They're not even born right now.

But because we're passing it on to the generation that we're a part of, they will rise up and tell a generation that's yet to be born.

Hallelujah.

And and, you know, I was raised in church.

Everybody wasn't raised in church, I understand that.

But the the greatest moments of my life that I remember, I remember when I got saved.

I remember what the church looked like.

I remember who was preaching, I remember what my mom was wearing.

I remember, I remember how I was dressed.

And I remember sitting on the front row, it was a co-revival.

My dad was an evangelist, and the minister that was ministering that night, his name was A.J.

Lewis.

He had a church there, and we were ministering for him, but he was ministering.

And at the end, he said, if you believe that you need to give your life to the Lord Jesus, I'm gonna invite you to come up to the altar and give your life to Christ.

And I remember as plain as I'm looking at you tonight, eight years old, I looked up at my mother.

That was the only time I ever looked up at my mom when I was eight years old, because she was only four foot something, right?

And said, I love you, mom.

But anyway, the point is, I looked up and I said, I think I need to ask Jesus into my heart.

And she walked up to the altar with me and I got saved.

I remember that as clear, as clear as day.

I remember getting filled with the Holy Spirit at nine years of age, speaking with other tongues.

I remember that distinctly.

Amen.

I remember we were doing a meeting in upstate New York.

My dad was traveling and we were at uh a meet a church called Christ Gospel Church in upstate New York.

And the pastor lived out in the country uh of New York, and they had wheat fields all around their house, and it was getting time for wheat harvest, and so that wheat was golden.

And me and the pastor's daughter, we were playing hide and seek in in that wheat, in that wheat.

And I don't know, somehow she went somewhere, I don't know.

And I I laid back in that wheat, and I remember looking up, and it was one of the, it was, it was a cold, crisp autumn day, and I saw that blue sky so crisp.

Now I didn't hear a voice, no, I I'm not saying that I heard something, but it just became such a revelation to me right then, at nine years of age, God has something for me to do with my life.

God has something for me to do with my life.

Right?

It just and it was something that stayed there.

And I and I look at all of these things that happened in my life.

I remember we we when we lived in Florida, my mom and dad pastored a church there, and we would have ministers over all the time.

You know, my my my dad collected, you know, out-of-work ministers like other people collect, you know, pots and pans.

And so we always had ministers at our church, at our house, always.

And but they would have meetings, and these ministers would be sitting around the table, and I wouldn't be in on the conversation, but I would be doing whatever I was doing, playing on the floor or or whatever I was doing, reading a book or whatever.

And I would hear those conversations, and it would just come up to me over and over again how wonderful it will be to do something for God.

As I'm just hearing all of those things.

And so it's been a part of my existence, these encounters with God and Him saying, I've got something for you to do with your life.

It marked me, it made an impression on me.

No matter where my life led me, it always came back to this.

God has something for me to do with my life.

Amen.

And it's not that maybe anybody uh in particular in my life ever told me that.

It was just everybody when I would talk to them about it, they would lean me towards that.

That God has something for you to do.

And so Genesis 18, hallelujah, verse 17, it's as the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?

Seeing that Abraham will become a great nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him.

For I know him.

What do you know, Lord, about him?

That he will command his children and his household after him, and they will keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he has spoken of him.

Now that's not the blessing, because the blessing was already on him.

What he what he wanted, what he is saying is this blessing that is perpetual to each succeeding generation.

He said, I know that he will teach his children after him so that that blessing can come on them.

Hallelujah.

One translation says, I have made a special agreement with him.

I did this so he would command his children and his descendants to live the way the Lord wants them to.

I did this so they would live right and be fair, then I, the Lord, can give him what I promised.

I, the Lord, can give him what I promised.

It can be as simple as this.

I can claim every scripture in the Bible about the salvation of my family, but I still have to teach them and train them.

I can claim the scripture, but I have to point them towards the things of God.

Amen.

God wanted Abraham to pass on the truth that he knew about God and the promises God had made.

Amen.

And he did.

We see that.

Isaac was aware of the covenant that his father had with God.

Jacob was aware of the covenant that his grandfather had with God.

You go all the way down the line.

Joseph was aware of the covenant that God had made with his grandfather.

He was aware of it.

He knew of it.

Why?

Because his father had talked about it, because his father had talked about it, and they knew it because Abraham had talked about it.

Hallelujah.

The generation coming will only know and walk in what we pass on to them.

They'll only know and walk in what we pass on to them.

Hallelujah.

It is said that within three generations, revelation, impartation is lost.

If you don't get it into those generations, it's lost.

The Lord told Pastor Nancy one time, she was, Nancy Dufresne, she was out, they were actually on vacation.

And the Lord told her to get out Brother Hagin's teachings on prayer.

And she said, okay, and so she started looking at those teachings.

And the Lord said, the light that he brought into the church.

Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, the light that he brought into the church concerning those things is being lost.

He had only been dead three years.

Why?

Because if I'm not consistently, if it's not consistently being passed on, it can be lost.

Hallelujah.

And so it's as simple as this.

What did God do for you?

Then you tell your generation coming what God did for you.

This is what God has done for me.

Right?

This is how God has turned this around.

Amen.

It's not trying to be preachy.

It's not trying to figure out when is the best time for devotion.

Listen, I've raised four children and I'm working on the fifth one.

And I know what it's like to have those squirmy little kids trying to have a devotion, and you got one picking its nose, and you got the other one looking out the window.

And it's right.

And it's like, am I, is anything that I'm saying hitting home here?

Right?

We're going to get into some things.

But I and I'm not just talking about teaching children.

I'm talking about passing on what God has done for you.

Hallelujah.

In Deuteronomy chapter 6.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

Deuteronomy chapter 6.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

This verse so helped me many years ago.

Deuteronomy 6.

Let's start in verse 6.

And these words that I command you this day shall be in your heart, and you shall teach them diligently unto your children.

And talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up, and you will bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they'll be as frontlets between your eyes, and you'll write them upon the post of your house and on your gates.

One translation, the ERV says, I want to welcome the Kansas location that's watching us tonight.

God bless you.

Thank you for being with us.

Amen.

I forgot they had a power outage there today, so uh they weren't able to uh get on YouTube, but they're with us tonight, and we'll be having faith explosion there next week, so praise God.

The the ERV, I wanted to welcome them before I uh talked about the ERV because that seems to be Pastor Jim Molson's favorite version.

And uh so I use it every now and then when I don't have a weightier version to go to.

And so, anyway, ERV.

Always remember that these commands that I give you today.

Be sure to teach them to your children.

Talk about these commands when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road.

Talk about them when you lie down and when you get up.

Tie them on your hands, wear them on your foreheads to help you remember my teachings.

Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Notice, be sure to teach them to your children.

Listen, this is not just, this is not just do's and don'ts.

All right?

He's giving us a how that we bridge the gap in the generation.

And notice what he says.

Tell them what God has done.

Tell them what you've seen God do.

What have you seen God do?

What has God done for you?

When has God made a way when there seemed like there was no way?

When did God heal your body?

When did God turn things around?

When did God provide for you when there looked like there was no provision?

Amen.

How about this?

How did God help you find the person that you were supposed to spend the rest of your life with?

How did God point out that's your wife, that's your husband?

How did that occur?

How did that come to be?

Teach that.

Right?

Teach that.

Why?

Then we then we don't have people looking the wrong way.

Then we don't have people trying to do something outside of the way that God wants it to be done.

Hallelujah.

You transmit truth when when you're sitting at home.

When you're sitting at home.

Hallelujah.

It can be something as simple as this.

We'll be watching something on television, and they'll make a statement or something that's wrong.

I'll stop it, I'll pause it, or whatever I gotta do.

And I say, okay, now let's think about this.

This is what they said, this is what the word says.

We were watching a show the other day, and and it's listen, it's a funny show.

I laugh about things that that's on the show, but but what they get over into is they they lie and they make a joke out of lying.

And so I was watching that and I stopped it, and I said, now I understand this is fictional.

I said, but let and I'm not preachy, but I said, let me let me explain something to you.

And we went in the word where it says, All liars will have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.

We went to the verse that said, God hates lying.

I said, so there's nothing funny about lying.

It's not a joke, it's serious with God.

Right?

You say, then what do you do?

Okay, let's finish washing the program.

Well, why didn't you just turn the program off?

Because I had already imparted the truth.

This is not right.

We don't lie.

But what are we doing?

Sitting in our house, we're imparting the truth.

I say, sitting in our house, say it out loud, sitting in my house, I'm imparting the truth.

Then he said, driving down the road.

Driving down the road.

You're what?

You're imparting the truth.

I remember we were raising our kids, and every every time on the way to church, and every time on the way back from church, we had to drive past a graveyard.

Right?

Big graveyard, big on the side of the road, big monuments.

And on the way to church, I'd impart truth.

I said, Boy, hallelujah.

I said, the Bible says that when the rapture of the church comes, that the dead in Christ will rise first.

Right?

And then those that are alive and remain.

And then we'd be coming back home from church.

And I'd say, Glory to God.

The Bible says that at the rapture of the church, the dead in Christ will rise first.

It wasn't long.

We'd drive by there, and before we'd even get there, they'd say, the Bible says that at the rapture of the church, right?

Now they were they were saying it, so I wouldn't say it.

But but why did they know that?

Why did they know that truth?

I talked about it all the time.

I talked about it all the time.

In the morning and in the night, what am I doing?

Transmitting truth.

He said, do it when you rise up, do it when you lay down.

I'm gonna tell you, now I'm not just talking about kids, but I'm talking about the generation.

One of the worst things you can do is kneel down by the bed with your child at night and give a little.

Now I lay me down to sleep.

Pray the Lord, my soul to keep.

If I should die before I awake, pray the Lord, my soul to take.

How morbid?

Right?

I mean, pray, impart truth, speak the word of God.

Why?

We're bridging the gap.

I say we're bridging the gap.

Teaching is the repetition of a truth.

Teaching is the repetition of a truth.

Pastor Caldwell taught me that.

Teaching is the repetition of a truth.

So I'm consistently repeating that truth.

I'm consistently going over it.

Why?

Because God places great emphasis on passing on the truth to the coming generation.

Coming generation.

Look at Deuteronomy chapter 4.

Deuteronomy 4 · chapter mention

Hallelujah.

And we have to understand something.

That there's not a certain age that any child gets to where that's the age that they'll get it.

They're able to grab it at any age.

Right?

If I will transmit that truth, it might have to be broken down differently.

It might have to be broken into smaller pieces.

I was talking with a couple not too long ago.

We were out at dinner, and uh they that she was uh actually entering into uh uh children's ministry in the Kansas location, and she was asking me questions and asking me different things, and I I told her the story about this lady, and some of y'all may have watched her videos, uh, Miss Patty Cake, and she just wanted to touch children, and so she figured out here's what I can do I can become this whimsical character, and I can put on bright colors, and I can have a house where I invite the kids over, and I'm Miss Patty Cake, right?

And I sing songs about Jesus, and I get the truth of the word of God into them, right?

She never considered herself a preacher, she considered herself somebody that could impart truth to the generation that was coming up.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

And she used to sing songs like God saw everything that he had made, right?

It was good, it was good.

God saw everything he made, and it was very good.

It was good, it was good.

At one year old, Lily would be in her walker going, it good, it good, it good.

Right?

Repetition of a truth.

Repetition of a truth.

Ever how it has to be done, right?

Because the generation coming, the generation coming has to hear it from us.

So why?

The generation after them will.

We'll hear it from them.

We don't want any generation to be stuck in the genesis of the situation.

We want them to have something they can grab on to, right?

You know, just in the natural.

Anybody besides me that you encountered things when you became an adult and you're like, I wish somebody would have told me about this.

Right?

I mean, I don't know about you, but you remember your first paycheck?

And you're like, ah, I get my paycheck, and you're looking at all these deductions.

Who's taking my money?

Right?

I mean, I worked 40 hours, and this is what I get.

Why, nobody had ever told you that the first partaker of your check is your Uncle Sam.

Right?

Nobody had told you that.

Impart a truth.

Deuteronomy chapter 4.

Deuteronomy 4 · chapter mention

Am I helping you?

Verse 9.

Only take heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen.

Don't forget what you have seen God do.

Don't forget the deliverance that you've seen God do in your life.

The things that God's brought you out of.

I remember we were sitting in the back room, the fellowship hall of the Kansas location.

Mark Hankins had just preached at our church, and he was talking to Michelle about her testimony.

And he said, Michelle, he said, don't ever stop telling your testimony.

Don't ever stop telling people what Jesus did for you.

And he brought out, he said, three times in the book of Acts alone, the Apostle Paul gave his testimony.

Three times in the book of Acts alone.

Amen.

So he says, be careful that you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life.

But teach them unto your sons and unto your sons' sons.

Don't forget it, pass it on.

Don't forget it, pass it on.

Hallelujah.

Do you see that?

Amen.

Because as long as we live, God's going to keep doing things for us.

And we just keep passing it on.

We just keep passing it on.

And what will happen?

That generation coming, we'll begin to face things and they'll say, Now, wait a minute.

Dad said this.

He said God would do this.

And then it'll go to, you know, Papa said this.

Right?

Or Mimi said this.

And this is what God will do.

And then you're going to go three and four generations down the line.

And they'll say, you know what?

Dad told me that Papa told him, and Papa said great-granddaddy told him.

And this is what God did.

And now you've got generations that are all walking in the same truth.

And there's no gaps.

And we're going to get into this.

It's important that we're passing on our theology.

It's important that we're passing on our doctrine.

It's important that we're passing on the importance of the Holy Spirit.

It's important that we're passing on the importance of believing in the word and taking God at His Word and saying the right thing and declaring the right thing.

It's listen, no child, no nun of the generation coming needs to try to live life without the power of the Holy Ghost, without the ability to hear from God directly in their own spirit.

I've got to start teaching at a young age.

You can hear God directly in your spirit.

You got to get quiet and listen.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

One translation says, you must be careful.

Be sure as long as you live, you never forget what you've seen.

Be sure as long as you live that you never forget what you have seen.

I've told you this story before, but I'll tell you again.

Even in the couple years that I was away from the plan of God, I listen, I knew I could not live that way.

I'd seen too much.

I'd seen too much.

God was too real to me.

Amen.

God was too real to me.

I'd seen too many people healed.

I'd seen too many people delivered.

Right?

I want not just my children.

I want the generation coming.

I want them under the power of the moving of the Holy Spirit.

I want them under the moving of the gifts of the Spirit, gifts of healing, working of miracles.

Why?

It does something.

It imprints on their spirit, it imprints their mind.

This thing is real.

This could not be done if it wasn't real.

Amen.

Be sure as long as you live, you never forget what you've seen.

Say it out loud.

Say, Father, help me to never forget what I have seen.

Hallelujah.

He said, You must teach these things to your children and your grandchildren.

Don't forget what you've seen.

Don't forget.

Right?

How much of an impact would that have had?

The child says, I don't know what we're going to do.

What are we going to do?

You know, they're facing a thing.

And granddad steps up and he goes, You know what?

We went right to the edge of the Red Sea.

And Pharaoh was behind us.

And he wanted to destroy us.

There was no way back and no way forward.

And the man of God lifted up the rod.

And when he lifted up the rod of God, the sea split.

And God put a pillar of fire between us and Pharaoh.

And all night long an east wind blew on the seabed.

And in the morning we woke up, and the sea grand, the bed of the sea was dry.

And Moses said, now it's time to go over.

And we walked over on dry ground.

Glory to God.

And all of us, three and a half million of us, walked through the sea and got to the other side.

And do you know that fellow Pharaoh?

He tried to chase us into the on the other side.

And he got halfway there, and God put the waters back down, and our enemy was defeated.

What impact would that have on a six-year-old's mind?

God will do that for me?

Right?

Son, we were dying of thirst.

We were in the desert and there was no water.

And the man of God stood up and he smote the rock.

And rivers came out of a rock, son.

And watered three and a half million people and all of their livestock.

And son, here's the most amazing thing.

That rock followed us around.

Everywhere we went, that rock was there.

Everywhere we went.

We never wanted water.

We never wanted for anything.

God took care of son.

My shoes never even wore out.

Be careful.

As long as you live, never forget what you've seen.

Never forget what you've seen.

Amen.

You tell your daughter, little girl, you come over here.

Let me tell you something.

I know what you're facing looks like a challenge.

But you know, one morning I woke up and I had some pain in my body.

And I went to the doctor, and they did, they took a scan, and they did a test, and they said I had a deadly disease in my body.

But I called for the elders of the church and they laid hands on me and they anointed me with oil in the name of the Lord.

And I went back to the doctor two weeks later, and that was gone.

Hallelujah.

I think about that young lady that could not have children.

And she could not have children, not because she was incapable, but or at that time before was incapable, but because she had had cancer in her body and the radiation had destroyed her ability to have children.

I'm going to say this this is a very elementary way to say it.

The parts were not there to have children.

But her sister-in-law came and had a handkerchief prayed over, and we sent it to her through the mail.

She took that handkerchief and put it on her body.

Three weeks later, she began to get sick every day, didn't know what it was, thought it was a bug, went to the doctor, and the doctor who had done the procedure that had made all of the plans came in shaking his head and said, I'm going to tell you why you're sick.

But I don't believe why you're sick.

You're sick because you're pregnant.

I have the picture of that woman holding her baby.

What if she tells that child, and I'm sure she does, son, it was impossible for me to have children.

My ovaries had been destroyed by radiation.

I could not have children.

But I got a handkerchief prayed over by a man of God.

And I laid it on my body, and three weeks later, son, I was pregnant with you.

You are an impossibility.

But God did that.

Don't ever forget what you've seen.

Don't ever forget what you've seen.

I've seen too many people that they said you can't live that are alive today.

I've seen too many people that they said it's impossible for this to happen, but it happened.

I've seen too much.

Listen, this generation has to know what we've seen.

Because what are we taught?

We're taught so much in this generation.

Question everything.

Question everything.

Question the power.

Question the authority.

Question everything.

They have to know what we've seen.

Am I helping you?

Never forget what you've seen.

Teach the things you've seen to your children.

As long as you live, never forget what you've seen.

I want to know what those that have gone before me have seen.

I want to know what they've seen.

You know, at the towards the end of Kenneth Hagin's life, there were people that they would ask, Are you going to see Brother Hagin tonight?

And they would say, No, all she does is tell stories.

My thought was, thank God, that's all he does is tell stories.

Because he's showing me how the application of what he's teaching from the Word of God works.

I want to hear, tell me another story.

Amen.

Pastor has a habit.

He'll be talking to me, he'll start to say something.

And sometimes he is saying things I've heard.

And he'll say, now stop me if I've if you've heard this.

Here's my response.

Say on, Pastor.

Why?

It doesn't matter if I've heard it.

If you're saying it, I need to hear it again.

Tell me what God.

Pastor, tell me again how you walked and sat down on that stump overlooking 12 acres of wooded ground.

Tell me how the Holy Spirit spoke to you and said, Go and offer them this amount of money.

And you went and offered them that amount of money, and they said, No, that's not enough money, and we don't want to sell the land.

It's not for sale.

Tell me how you went back and sat on that stump and the Holy Spirit said, wait ten days and go offer them$10,000 less.

Tell me how you did that.

Tell me how when you went back and offered them$10,000 less, they said, okay.

And not only will we sell you the land, we'll finance it for you.

Tell me how that you didn't know that the interest rates were going to be 11, 12, 13 percent.

And your interest rate was minuscule.

Tell me how you spent over a million dollars to build a building and you raised it out of your church.

You didn't raise it from a telethon.

You didn't raise it from any other way.

You challenged the people of God to give a thousand dollars per family to raise up a spiritual production center that would reach city, state, nation.

Tell me again how you did that.

Praise God.

Hallelujah.

See, we need to know that.

We need to know that.

Why?

Because there's a generation coming that need to know how to believe God.

They need to know that God is a man of his word and God will do what he said.

We got too many preachers today that want their own thing and they don't want to learn from anybody that went before them.

And they have no honor for those that have paved the way for the rest of us.

And they fail to recognize that we are simply standing on the shoulders of greatness that heard from God and walked in the things of God and fought hell and beat back demons and delivered cities and set people free.

And then we walk into everything that they provided, and we walk into everything that they have left us, and we want to act like we did it and we got it on our own.

It's only there because the previous generation cared enough about us to make it a reality.

Hallelujah.

I say hallelujah.

As long as you live, never forget what you've seen.

Never forget.

Look at Joel one.

Joel one.

Joel one verse two.

Hear this, you old men.

None of us in here.

And give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land.

Has this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?

Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.

Hallelujah.

The New Living Translation says, Hear this, you leaders of the people.

Listen, all who live in the land in all your history.

Has anything like this happened before?

Tell your children about it in the years to come.

And let your children tell their children.

Pass the story down from generation to generation.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

I just want to share this with you.

I told my pastor one time, I said, here's what I think.

Now, this is just what I think.

What I think, and 69 cents won't even buy you a cup of coffee.

But here's what I think.

I think, I think on a wall in the church, there should be a timeline of where you started.

Life unlimited, downtown.

John Barrow Road.

Right?

There should be a timeline.

And what happened?

It should be a mural to the goodness of God.

This is why we're here.

This is how we arrived.

This is why this church exists.

Amen.

So you can take people and say, this is where we started.

And this is what God did while we were there.

It was while I was there in that church, life unlimited.

It was while I was there that a preacher from Ghana that I had never met, that a pastor named Jabe Levins had invited.

And then Jabe Levins quit pastoring the church, turned it over to me.

And while I was sitting on the platform, that preacher from Ghana turned around to me and said, Yours is a television ministry.

You following me?

And then when I was helping the praise team with the sound, because the sound men didn't show up, I sat down beside behind the sound console.

And when I opened my eyes, I didn't see the church.

I saw a television studio.

And I saw me ministering.

And I saw television cameras.

And I heard in my spirit, yours is a television ministry.

I heard that at Life Unlimited.

And then God moved us to John Barrow Road.

Now we're on this in the mural.

We're at John Barrow Road.

I'm telling you about telling the next generation.

Now we're we're here at John Barrow Road.

I didn't, I didn't I wasn't even I was looking for a building.

I didn't even know that place existed.

See, I'm talking in Pastor, right?

I'm telling you Pastor's story.

But I needed some uh hair shampoo.

And I had bought some hair shampoo at a Walgreens in California.

And they just opened up a Walgreens and put it in John Barrett, the the shopping center in John Barrow Road.

So I went over there to get some shampoo.

And I saw all of these sweets that were available.

And so I began to ask questions.

And they flew a man in from Texas to give us, to give us, you know, tell us what we could do.

And he said, now watch.

He said, I didn't have any money.

Zero dollars.

Zero.

And he said, the man began to talk to me.

And he's and and and he said, well, what do you want to do?

He said, well, we'll start out with two of these.

He said, but I want you to put in the contract that at any time we can expand to another one.

And I want you to put in the contract that at any time I can break this lease and move out of this place.

He said, because I don't know how fast God's going to grow us.

And he said, Oh, and we need a hundred chairs.

And we need you to build us a platform.

And the man looked at him and said, Is there anything else?

And he said, Yeah, by the way, there is.

He said, He said, I want, I want a clause that we can, we can we can expand anytime we want.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

They weren't there very long.

Because God moved him up to Napa Valley.

Are you following me?

Now we're here.

Now we're here.

How are we going to do this?

I've never built a church before.

The generation coming needs to know this.

You've got generations, hear me, you've got generations of pastors right now.

You've got generations that are trying to focus on fundraising.

They're trying to focus on how to fund the call of God.

They're getting involved in all kinds of pyramid schemes.

And we got to fund the plan of God.

Here's how you fund the plan of God.

Pastor, how did you do that?

How did you do that?

You tell me how you did it.

And the Bible said, follow the faith of those that have gone before you.

Just do what they did.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

And then they asked you, you say, Come here, let me show you.

Come on, get down here with me.

Let me show you how I prayed.

Let me show you how I prayed about this.

Let me show you where I went in the word of God.

Come on, get right down here and pray with me.

Let me show you how I did this.

Let me tell you how this happened.

Amen.

Do you see that?

Show me, tell me again how you did that.

Glory to God.

Amen.

Tell me, tell me, Pastor.

Tell me how all these contractors started coming to you and giving you their services for free.

Tell me, tell me about that bulldozer man that did all that dozer work for nothing.

Tell me about him again.

Tell me how Miss Jeannie would go to the contractors every Monday morning and give them each a check and say, now that's it, that's all we got.

Come back next week and I'll have some more for you.

Tell me how that happened.

Tell me how God gave you favor with the city.

Tell me how God gave you favor with the state and the nation.

See, tell me.

I'm this generation.

Tell me how that happened.

And you tell me, and I will never forget it.

I will never forget it.

Oh, glory to God.

Revelation that's not passed on will be lost.

If I don't pass it on, it'll be lost.

Hallelujah.

If I don't pass it on, it will be lost.

Hallelujah.

Thank you, Jesus.

Look at uh Psalm seventy eight.

Psalm 78.

And that and folks, that's just how I do things.

I was with my pastor one time on a trip and I asked him, I said, Pastor, when God was having you build VTN, tell me how did you pray about that?

How did you pray about that?

Because I know God was giving you step by step.

He was giving you piece by piece instruction.

Tell me, tell me how you did that.

How did you persevere when you were trying to build a television station?

And there were 25, 25 people, 25 people filed with the state that didn't want you to build that station and put that tower up.

How did you persevere?

What was it like when you leaned back in your desk and in your office and leaned back on the chair and said, Father, I don't know if I can do this?

What did it mean to you when he said, Son, you must do it?

You must do it.

How did that impact you?

Tell me about that.

How can I build that relationship with God where He tells me, You must do this.

How do I do that?

Amen.

Whoo, glory.

Psalm 78, verse 4.

Psalms 78:4

We will not hide them.

Well, let's start in verse 2.

I will open my mouth in a parable.

I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he has done.

Verse 6, so that the generation to come might know them, even the children that are not yet born, who should arise and declare them to their children.

So if we do our job correctly, even the generation that's not yet born, what will they do?

They will rise up and teach their children.

Hallelujah.

The NIV says, things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us, we will not hide them from their descendants.

We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders that he has done.

So that the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children.

So what we're looking for is this telling the next generation.

So that this generation, so they'll tell the coming generation, and they'll turn and tell the generation that's not on the earth yet.

God's a generational God.

Everything that he says, he says, I want to pass this down through the generations.

Hallelujah.

If we pass on the things of God to the coming generation, even the children that are yet to be born will be told.

But we've got to pass them on.

Psalm 71 and verse 18.

Psalm 71 and verse 18.

Now, also when I'm old and gray-headed, God, forsake me not until I have shown your strength to this generation and your power to everyone that is to come.

Hallelujah.

That's not just through the laying on of hands, we show the power.

We show the power through what we've seen.

We show the power through what we've experienced.

Amen.

And notice what the psalmist says, what David says.

He says, when he says, Don't forsake me, in other words, don't let me leave until I've shown your power to this generation.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Dr.

Les Summerall was a teenager.

He was living in Panama City Beach, Florida.

And he was not running from God.

He had never been with God.

He was a wild child.

His mother was a minister that was praying for him.

His father, George Summerall, was not born again, had nothing for the things of God.

Lester got tuberculosis.

And in those days, tuberculosis was a death sentence.

There was nothing they could do about it.

And it got so bad that he was coughing up blood.

And he had been become bedfast.

And he said that during that time when he would cough, he would cough up, and what he said, pieces of his lung.

He would cough up chunks onto his pillow.

The doctor came to check on him.

They made house calls then, came to check on him.

And as he checked him, he said, he'll be dead within 24 hours.

And he filled out the death certificate and did everything but sign it.

He said, I've got another appointment.

I'll come back to sign this.

That's how far gone he was.

Hallelujah.

The doctor left.

His mother left.

She's weeping in the other room.

He said, It was the darkest day of my life.

And he said, but all of a sudden I had a vision.

And he said, on one side of the bed, I saw a Bible as big as a man.

On the other side, I saw a casket, just my size.

And he said, I heard the Spirit of the Lord say, Choose.

You got to choose.

You can choose my plan for your life and live.

Or you can keep going down with your plan and you will die.

You got to make a choice.

Right?

Now understand how gracious God is.

I'm telling you this because what we're telling the generation.

In his ignorance and even rebellion, here was his mindset.

Well, if I say yes to the plan of God, I'll get to live.

I don't want to do it, but I'll do it.

And so he said, Okay, I'll preach.

And he said, immediately after he said that, immediately after he said that, he said, I fell into asleep.

Woke up the next morning, no coughing, no pain, hungry for the first time in months.

His mother came in and he said, Mother, I would like some breakfast.

And she said, Well, I can give you something, you know, very deluded.

He said, No, no, no, no, no.

I want eggs and ham and biscuits.

And he ate three plates.

She was standing there weeping because she thought he was eating his last meal.

He said, No, the Lord's healed me.

Amen.

And he got up and went about his life.

But one day the Lord said, What about that promise you made me?

And he said, Okay.

Went up in his room, packed his little suitcase, came walking down the stairs.

His dad, George Summerall, looked at him and said, Where are you going?

He said, I'm going to do what I promised the Lord I would do.

He said, If you walk out that door, don't ever come back.

I'm not going to have a son that's a preacher.

And he said, with tears in my eyes, I looked at my father and I said, I don't have a choice.

I've got to go do what God asked me to do.

Now I'm hurrying through this.

So he started preaching around the little towns and had a friend that, and he let his friend go with him because his friend had a car.

And so they're traveling, and his friend is doing praise and worship.

That's what we call it.

He was leading songs.

And Lester would preach.

And he had one sermon on his testimony, and that was it.

He wouldn't even give an altar call.

He would tell the people, he would say, he would say this.

He would say, Well, if you believe what I said, you'll go to heaven.

If you don't, you're going to go to hell.

And he'd just walk off.

And so he was in a one-room schoolhouse ministering the word.

And he had been staying with the farmer.

And one day the farmer came, got him up real early, and said, You know, I believe the Bible says you don't work, you don't eat.

He said, Well, you've been staying with me.

He said, It's time you start working.

And so he sent him out to slop the hogs.

And so he's slopping the hogs and he said, He said, The slop's coming over on my white patent leather shoes.

And he didn't, he's right.

And so that night he goes to church, he's dressed in a white suit.

He goes to church.

And he's ministering the word.

And he's about to do the same thing.

And all of a sudden, he fell into a trance.

And he saw a river.

And the closer he got to that river, he saw that river, he saw that river was faces, that it was nationalities of all different people of nationality: Asian people, Hispanic people, African people, white people, European people.

And he saw that flowing down this crevass.

And he saw them going over the edge and going into hell.

And the Lord said to him, You are called to the nations.

And he let him know.

He said, Do not let their blood be on your hands.

He said, I woke up and everybody was gone.

Everybody had left.

He said, My white suit was mud because I had cried and in the dirt.

It was that moment.

He said, In that moment, I promised God I will do everything you tell me to do.

Now hear me.

I'm saying this for a reason.

And he, this is the verse the Lord spoke to him and said, You go show my strength to your generation.

He traveled the world.

One of the greatest books I ever read that impacted my life, Adventuring with Christ by Dr.

Lester Summerall.

How he traveled the world with Howard Carter.

Went around the world, went around the known world preaching the gospel.

Am I helping you with this?

Went around the known world preaching the gospel.

Was in Hot Springs, Arkansas, at the General Council of the Assembly of God, the camp meeting.

And he's there.

The Lord had told him to go there.

He had made a preacher mad at him because he cut the revival off, because the Lord told him to go.

And he said, I've got a connection for you there.

Howard Carter had come over from Great Britain.

And Howard Carter was the head of the Assemblies of God in Great Britain.

And he's ministering at that camp meeting.

Lester Sumerall is in the morning service.

He's teaching on the gifts of the Spirit.

After the service, he walks up to him and he said, Out of my mouth came this strange statement.

He said, I will go with you.

I will be with you.

I will secure you.

I will strengthen you.

I will hold your hand and be your strength when you are old, and I will follow you wherever you go.

And he said, I looked at Howard Carter and I said, I am sorry.

I don't know how why I said that.

And he said, I do.

Come to my room.

And he went to his room.

And he went to his box, to his suitcase, and he got out a pad, and he turned to just a few days previous.

And the Lord had spoken to him and said, When you are in America, I've got somebody that is going to come help you.

And when he comes, this is what he will say.

And it was word for word what Lester had told him.

And he said, Now I'm going to be leaving on a trip.

Do you want to go?

He said, Yes, I want to go.

Somehow they never decided how they were going to meet one another.

So Lester started working his way towards California.

See, we got to tell these things.

Show my strength to your generation.

So he goes and he's in Los Angeles, and a pastor asked him to come and preach.

And so he preaches, and the pastor said, Will you go on with the meeting?

He said, No, I've got to go meet Howard Carter.

He said, You don't even know where he is.

He said, Here's what I know from the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit said, Go to the bottom of the world and work your way up.

Well, the bottom of the world is the land down under, so we're going to go to Australia.

They took him to the ship.

And the pastor said, You're crazy.

You'll die.

And he said, Then do me a favor.

If I die, buy me a little headstone and have it imprinted.

Here lies Lester Summerall.

He died trusting God.

He died trusting God.

Went to the bottom of the world.

Didn't have enough money to get into Australia.

Because you had to have a certain amount of money.

But when he got before the customs people, they let him go without that amount of money.

That began his adventuring with Christ.

Traveled around the world with Dr.

Howard Carter.

Came back after their around the world trip to Great Britain.

Howard Carter was the president of the Assembly of God.

They're the president of the Assembly of God College, and he was having a conference.

One of the speakers that they had in that conference was a man named Smith Wigglesworth.

Wigglesworth would minister at night, Lester Sumerall would minister in the mornings.

After Lester ministered the first time, Wigglesworth heard him minister, and he came up to me and he said, Son, you need to come see me.

And he gave him his address.

Lester said the next day he went and he said, I had become British by then.

I had become uh, you know, I had, I had, I had uh uh uh, you know, I had my bowler hat and I had my uh little suit and my umbrella under my arm and my satchel and my paper.

And he said, I went up and I knocked on the door.

He said, Wigglesworth opened the door and looked at me and saw that paper and said, What's that?

He said, It's the paper.

He said, It's lies.

I don't let lies in my house.

You can't come in with it.

So he said, I stuck the paper in the bush so I could grab it when I came out.

Now I'm hurrying.

He said, I went in.

He said, the first thing Wigglesworth said was, Let me pray for you.

And he said, That was unusual to me.

I was used to doing my own praying.

He said, Wigglesworth prayed for him.

And he said, after he prayed for him, he said, Now let's read some scripture.

And he said he read a chapter of scripture.

And then he said, Let's pray again.

And he prayed for him again.

Then his daughter came and said, Dinner's ready.

So they went into dinner before they ate.

He said, Let's read some scripture.

And he read a chapter.

And then he said, Now let's pray.

And he said, About that time my stomach was growling.

I was hungry.

And I thought, if he closes his eyes, I'll get a quick bite.

But he said, We quit, we stopped eating, and Wigglesworth got up and left, and his daughter followed him, and she came out and said, Uh, Father has gone to rest.

Uh, he will see you later.

And he said, I was walking home, I was thinking, that was a strange bird.

And he said, but then as I walked on, I thought, wait a minute, something happened to me.

I'm different.

He said he went back the next day and the next day and the next day.

Now, watch, here's something very important.

He said, You know what I noticed?

Nobody else ever visited him but me.

No other young ministers ever went but me.

You see this?

If you're pursuing those that have seen God do things, Wigglesworth turned the world upside down.

He went to Switzerland, and so many people were healed that the Swiss government came and said, We're shutting you down for practicing medicine without a license.

You can't lay hands on anybody anymore.

He said, Okay.

And he started praying in mass, and more people got healed than were getting healed before.

Hallelujah.

He finally, the United States government sent notice to all of their people that were there in Britain, and Britain began to talk to people that were there from America.

They were heavily into World War II.

And all non-nationals have to go home.

You have to go back where you came from.

He said, I went to Brother Wigglesworth and I told him what had happened.

And he said he grabbed me and pulled me to him.

And he began to pray for me.

And he said he was crying tears, and his tears would run down his face and drip on my forehead and run down my forehead into my eyes and mix with my tears.

And he said, he began to prophesy over me.

And he said, I see a revival coming.

And he said, I won't see it, but you'll you'll see it.

You'll see it.

And he said, It will be the greatest move of God that we've ever seen.

The miracles and the signs and the wonders will pay will far outweigh anything that's ever been seen before.

And then he cried out, he said, God, whatever faith is in me, let it come into him.

Let it come into him.

Hallelujah.

He got up.

See, he wanted to know from that generation, what have you seen?

The people that want to see are the ones that get the impartation.

You want to see it, you God will put you in a place to get it, to have it, to walk in it.

Hallelujah.

That bold faith.

Show my strength to your generation.

Show my strength to your generation.

Hallelujah.

Went around the world, built full-power television stations.

Owned a C-130 Hercules plane.

That they say you can't own, but he owned one.

Mercy Ship Zoe.

Huge ocean liner.

That belonged to his ministry just for the purpose of feeding people.

Strong in the Lord.

Show my strength to your generation.

Hallelujah.

We're to show or declare the strength of God to the next generation.

Psalm 102 and 18 says, This shall be written for the generation to come, and the people who shall be created shall praise the Lord.

The people that shall be created will praise the Lord.

He says, You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

And the things that you have heard of me.

Among many witnesses, the same commit to faithful men who shall be able to teach or to tell others also.

These things that Paul imparted to Timothy were given as a sacred trust.

It was so important to Paul that they live on that he said, Here's what you've got to do.

He mentions five generations here.

And he says, You've got to take what you've heard from me, and you've got to pass it on to faithful people who will teach others also.

Hallelujah.

A sacred trust.

The most valuable, the most precious thing that I can pass on is the knowledge of what God has done.

The knowledge of what God has done.

No one else can pass on the things that God has done except those that have seen it.

Those that have experienced it, those that have walked it out.

Amen.

I told a group of our ministers one time we were having a general in the faith at our church.

And another general showed up at the meeting.

And they ended up ministering together.

And I said to these ministers, I said, You don't know how valuable this is.

Because you don't know if you'll ever see that again.

You don't know if you'll ever see that again.

If we're not listening to the generation that went before us, they're passing away.

The Lord said there's a generation that's passing away, and there's a generation that's coming.

That generation is passing away.

Hallelujah.

My generation, my generation has less time ahead of us than we have behind us.

Hallelujah.

In 20 years, I'll be 80 years old.

You know how fast 20 years passes by?

Very fast.

We have more time behind us than ahead of us.

So that means those that are left, we've got to hear more from them.

Why?

So we have more to say to the generation that we're a part of.

So that they will have something to say to the generation that they're a part of.

And the generation to come will be well equipped.

Hallelujah.

You don't know if you'll ever see this again.

I remember years ago.

Years, years ago.

You know, I think about some of these things, and I'm I'm hurrying to bring this to a close.

You know, there was a young man born in West Texas and uh not born into a good family.

Uh his mother was an addict, his father was rarely there, they ended up getting a divorce.

And uh his name was Willie George.

And uh he didn't have a good life.

His brother, John George, has ministered in our church.

He he didn't have a good life.

And uh he was he was raised with with that, and he he got into high school and was not living good, not living right.

And he made a statement, you know, he got saved, but he made a statement one time.

I was watching a message that he preached, and it was called The Importance of Children's Ministry to Jesus.

And he made a statement, he said, you know, I would go to church with my grandma, and he said, they would they would put us down in the basement and and you know we would we would uh go to Sunday school, and he said they would teach us things and we would see, you know, felt bored figures and all this.

But here's what he said he said, never once did they ask me if I needed to be born again.

And he said, you know why they didn't do that?

He said, because people don't think little kids got anything to deal with.

He said, what they didn't know was the home I was living in.

He said, just a few nights previous, he said, my brother and I were laying in our bed, and he said, my mom walked by and she thought we were asleep, I wasn't asleep, and she said, he said, my mom walked by my bedroom door, our bedroom door, and I heard her say, I just don't know what they're gonna do without me.

And he said, I heard her go into the bathroom and shut the door and lock it.

And he said, I got up, right?

He said, I'm 10 years old.

I got up and I went to the bathroom door and I'm banging on the door.

I said, Mama, what did you mean?

What did you mean?

And she said, I'm done, son.

I'm gonna die.

I've took a whole bottle of pills, I'm I'm I'm gonna die.

I'm it's over with.

And he said, I I ran out in the in the city, Fort Worth, Texas.

I ran out with no shoes on, no shirt, and I ran all the miles across the city to get my grandparents.

And they came back to the house.

And he said that they they called the the ambulance and they broke the door down and pulled my mom out, and they thought she was dead.

You hear me?

And he said, she went to the hospital and she she they they they saved her and she got out of the hospital, and he said, a few weeks later, he said, I came home from school.

And he said, I walked in the house, and he said it was so dark and cold.

He said, My house was always dark and cold, but it was extra dark and cold that day.

And he said, and I looked on the ground and and I and I saw something, and I turned on the light, and there was blood.

There was blood all the way down the hallway, and the bathtub was full of blood.

He said, I didn't know what had happened.

He said, My mother had come home from her job on her lunch break and tried to kill herself and had gotten the bathtub and cut her wrist.

And if it hadn't been for the neighbor hearing something and coming over, she would have died.

He said, I was going to church every Sunday, and they never asked me if I knew Jesus because they didn't think I was facing anything.

Hallelujah.

Well, he got saved.

He got saved and and and he was living with his father, and his dad told him he had a car, and his dad told him, he said, You're not going to church anymore.

He said, Why, dad?

And he said, You're not going to church anymore.

If you're going to go to church, you got to leave.

And he made the statement, he said, you know, my dad, the whole time I was out getting drunk, the whole time I was out partying, my dad never cared.

He never said one thing to me.

And he said, Now I get born again.

And he said, so I had to move back in with my mom.

Well, the long story short, he ended up moving uh to a town in West Texas with his uncle, who pastored a church, him and his brother.

And in that, in that church, he began to help in the church.

And one day they came and they said, We need a man, a young man, to come back here and keep these uh seven, eight, nine-year-old boys settled down because they're overrunning the Sunday school teachers.

So he said, they asked me to go back.

He said, it was for one Sunday.

I was going back there to lay the law down.

And he said, I went back there and he said, I saw something.

They weren't bad boys, they just needed to hear something.

And he said, So I went to the board of that church and I said, Can I take the seven, eight, nine-year-old kids?

And they said, We'll have to pray about it.

They prayed about it and they said, Okay.

Now watch.

He said, I didn't know what to do.

He said, he said, they're not going to sit there and listen to a Bible lesson.

So he said, I prayed and I asked the Lord, and the Lord reminded me that you got a pair of green neon socks for Christmas that you're never going to wear.

And he said, so I got those green neon socks out.

And he said, I put two eyes on that sock and I painted a mouth.

He said, and I got a shoebox and I made a window.

And he said, I put my hand in that shoe box and I had my first puppet.

He said, I had my first Eugene.

And he started reaching kids.

Started reaching children with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Wasn't long they were having to bust kids in.

Wasn't long they were running as many kids in the children's church as they were running adults in the sanctuary.

And he's doing wild things.

He's setting things on fire.

He's doing brain surgeries and heart surgeries.

Are you with me?

Why?

Because his uncle brought him to his house and said, Willie, God will use you.

God will use your life.

Look, this is what God's done for me.

He wouldn't let John or Willie go to sleep without reading one of Brother Hagin's books every night.

John George told me, he said, my uncle would not let us go to sleep until we read one of Brother Hagin's books, and in the morning he would quiz us on it to make sure we read it.

What's he doing?

Getting it in to the generation.

He impacted my life.

Well, it wasn't long after, well, I say it wasn't long after that.

He he was a children's minister, traveled all over America and the world doing children's meetings and saw countless kids saved.

And the Lord began to deal with them to start a church.

He started a church on the move in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

At one time it was the fastest growing church in America with phenomenal children's ministries.

But he said, I began to notice something.

He said, My teenagers, my preteen kids would be coming home and I would begin to talk to them about what are you learning and what are you what are you hearing back there?

You know, what are they teaching you?

And he said, they were having a hard time telling me.

And he said, so I went and sat in the room and and heard the youth pastor preach.

And he said, you know, he was doing a lot of things like, go win your high school for Jesus and go do this and go do that.

And he said, you know, that's an unrealistic expectation for a kid.

Go win your high school for Jesus.

Now I'm not saying that's wrong.

I'm just saying that that is an unrealistic expectation.

He said, God began to give me a heart.

I've got to reach that generation.

Started a group called 180.

Did a lot of innovative things for youth ministry.

Now hear me.

In the time that he was over 180, over a million kids came to that thing.

He has people on, he's retired from pastoring.

He has people on staff at church on the move that got saved in 180.

Why?

Because he cared enough to tell the next generation what God had done for him.

I remember one time the children's pastors in our church came to me and they said, We feel like that God wants us to do something else.

And I said, Okay.

And we were having two services at that time.

We were having a 9 a.m.

service and an 11 a.m.

service.

And uh it was uh we had a lot going on.

We were feeding over 200 people every Sunday morning after service, and we had people showing up at 6 o'clock in the morning to cook.

Very, very busy.

And uh so at that time I was ministering at 9 and 11.

And Pastor Michelle would minister at the 6 o'clock service that evening.

Sometimes she would minister at the 11 o'clock.

So I said, What are we gonna do?

And so I went to the Lord in prayer, and he said, Who has the vision for what you want for children's ministry?

I said, I do.

He said, then you you do it.

Well, I went to St.

Louis.

I had gone to St.

Louis with a couple guys because we wanted to look at a building that was there.

Because we were at that time they had these these built-I forget what they were called, sprung structures is what they were called.

And and they would that you could set these buildings up, and we were looking for maybe that might be an option.

Well, we went and we looked at the building, and it wasn't.

But while we were there, uh the Lord, the Lord dealt with me and he said, I want you to call your children's ministry Fort Faith.

And he said, I want you to have a Western theme.

And he said, I uh he said, you know, you you you know how to do that.

You've been a cowboy.

And so I went to the Western store and and and bought me a new hat and some wranglers and boots and and and here we go.

But I spent I spent a month changing everything in that ministry.

I got volunteers together and we turned it into a fort.

Not just, we didn't just call it a fort, it looked like a fort.

We painted the walls, it had it had wood fort walls all the way around it.

Right right here on the back wall was the gate, Fort Faith.

And standing in the gate was Buckskin Joe.

Yeah, I drew him, Buckskin.

He he was he was over six feet tall.

You could stand there and look at him.

You can take a picture with him.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

We opened that thing up, and the kids started coming.

The kid started coming.

And you know what we did?

We told them what God had done for us.

We told them what God had done for us.

Hallelujah.

Man, they got so excited.

Every other week they got a letter from Buckskin Joe.

And you know what that letter was?

How God had delivered him.

The most recent peril that God had delivered him from.

I'd go to the mailbox at the fort and I'd say, Boys and girls, we got a letter from Buckskin today.

Yeah! And boy, there, there, right?

And here's the thing I'd had a doctor and his wife that were helping me in children's ministry, and we started busting kids in, kids that had never been in church.

And they didn't act right in church.

They didn't act right in children's ministry.

The doctor called me and asked me to come meet with him.

And so I went to meet with him, and he said, Those children are just too unruly.

They have no decorum.

And I looked at him and I said, So are you telling me that what we preach will only work if the kids know how to sit still and pay attention?

I said, These kids have never been in church.

They're a blank canvas.

One of those families that were coming was coming to our event called Operation Sunshine that we had every week in the in the projects there in Kansas City, Missouri.

And one day we showed up and there was caution tape all around their apartment because their father was having an affair and the woman's husband found out about it and came and killed both of them.

And we showed up and the family was grieving.

They showed up that Sunday to come to church.

And I asked him, I said, Is this only this only work?

If they know all of the protocol, this part of this generation.

Man, I'd pull out the pull out the the letter.

Dear boys and girls, I had an interesting event occur to me.

And I wanted to tell you about how God kept me.

I was riding down the road the other night on my horse lightning with my good dog thunder.

And we were going and the sun had set and the moon was rising.

When all of a sudden, boys and girls, there were two outlaws that confronted me and demanded that I get off of my horse and give them all my money.

They took my horse, my gun, and all of my things and left me there alone.

Immediately I cried out to the Lord.

I asked him, Lord, now you got to help me because you gave me that horse and you gave me that gun and you gave me these things, and I need it to be brought back to me safely.

Hallelujah.

And you know what, boys and girls?

As those outlaws made their way down the road, about four or five miles down the road, they ran into my good friend, Skunk Eye Jones.

And Skunk Eye recognized that that was my horse and my things.

And he stopped them.

Took them to the sheriff and put them in jail and brought all my things back to me.

Isn't it good to know, boys and girls, that even if somebody steals from you, God will bring it back to you?

Amen.

Now that's just off the cuff.

That's not one of Buckskin's real letters.

Could be.

But here's the thing.

Why go through all of that?

Why go back there when you got a church, two services packed with adults that want to hear your preaching, why go back there and minister to children?

Because if we don't minister to them, we miss the generation that's here and we impact the generation that's coming negatively.

If I don't have the same fire and the same zeal and the same enthusiasm to reach the generation, I'll miss something.

I've got people, I've got adults working in my church today that got saved in our children's ministry.

I'm now dedicating children of children I dedicated.

Why are we doing that?

Because we told that generation, and they told the next generation, and now they're telling the next generation.

Hallelujah.

Say it out loud, Lord.

Don't ever let me forget to tell what you've done for me.

Help me to keep it in my mind and to tell those in this generation what you have done in the name of Jesus.

Oh hallelujah.

Oh hallelujah.

I believe you have received tonight.

Hallelujah.

And that's the importance.

That's the importance of what we do with the generation that's coming.

That's the importance of baby faith builders.

That's the importance of children's ministry.

That's the importance of youth ministry.

It's because that's the gener, it's not just giving.

I've talked to pastors and they say, I've got to give my kids something to do.

It's not just giving kids something to do, it's impacting the generation.

It's taking those creative ideas that God places within us and saying, we're going to use this to impact the generation that we're a part of.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

We want to receive your giving tonight.

If you have a