Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #256 - "God Just Moved" Stories of Revival and Radical Obedience

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#256 - "God Just Moved" Stories of Revival and Radical Obedience · The OneCry Podcast

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But God just moved in and said, I'm here, I'm here.
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Just listen to me, work with me.
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And you have no idea what will happen if you'll just reach up, take my hand and aggressively
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cooperate with me.
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And that's the first thing that it did in my heart, Bill.
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I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but it does help me.
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Oh, it's incredible.
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Welcome to the OneCry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and
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reports.
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Well, welcome to the OneCry Podcast.
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I'm Bill Eliff, and you are just not going to believe who I've got on the podcast today.
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This is my brother, Tom Eliff.
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And Tom, I'm kind of a younger, better looking son, and Tom is the older son that has other
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attributes.
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I'm not sure what those would be, but anyway, wiser would be one, yeah, we might say.
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But Tom, it's great having you, and I love Tom so much, and he was instrumental in discipling
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me in so many different ways.
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Tom, I'll give a little thumbnail for those who don't know Tom, but Tom was a pastor for
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what, 60 years maybe, 50 something years, and of some great churches the Lord has used.
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And in the middle of being in one of the fastest growing churches in America years ago, God
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called Tom to the mission field, and went to Zimbabwe for several years, and then came
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back after his daughter was hurt in a really bad accident, and pastored some more.
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And then God led him to be the head of the International Mission Board for the Southern
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Baptist Convention, used him in significant ways.
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He was the president of the SBC for a couple of terms, and all of his children are all
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over the world, literally, and missions and grandchildren, and God's using them in great
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ways.
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So that's about all the good I'm going to say, Tom, about you.
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I'm not going to sway your head any more than that, but thanks for being with us.
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Bill, I'm so grateful that I have this opportunity.
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First of all, just to say to folks, in spite of all the kidding, I have such consummate
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respect for my brothers and my sister, and Bill being the youngest brother has always
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been an encourager and an encouragement to us, especially in the arena of revival, spiritual
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awakening.
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And I'd love to just take the next 30 minutes and joke about him, and I could, and if you
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were to write me my address, no, never mind.
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I could say anything that you wanted to know, but I think we have a more serious subject
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at hand, and I want to make sure we have time to get to that.
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Yes.
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That's exactly right.
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So we'll jump into that.
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So, Tom, as I've mentioned to you before the broadcast, I've been asking men and some ladies
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when they first encountered just extraordinary movements of God that we would, you know,
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God is moving all the time, but there are those times when he just moves with extraordinary
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power and accomplishes extraordinary results that we call revival, and then spiritual awakening
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that when it breaks out into seeing multitudes of people come to Christ.
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When did that, when did you first become aware of that?
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When did you first experience that in your life?
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Well, Bill, as a pastor's son, and you know this, we experienced many, and I put this
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in quote, revivals, because that's what they used to call the meeting hours you'd have
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in your local churches.
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In fact, that's where I met Christ, not at the revival service itself, but at home afterwards
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as a young man.
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And so I was keenly aware of the fact that there was that use of the word, a meeting
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that was called a revival.
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But I had the privilege of living my college years and my seminary years in the late 60s
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and early 70s, and I was there, for instance, at Southwestern as a student.
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I was, in fact, in the very chapel service where it was announced that we had a student
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from Asbury who was going to share his testimony.
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And from that point on, it was an amazing, amazing period of time for all of us as students
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of Southwestern, especially those of us like myself who were pastors of local churches,
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and we were commuting to seminary, and we just saw the hand of God in a remarkable fashion.
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I wish I had time to tell about that chapel service.
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It really set the stage.
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It lasted.
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In fact, I drove back to Dallas, showered, dressed, went back to the campus, spent the
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night there like all the other students in that chapel service, which lasted not only
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through the night but into the next day.
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And in our hearts, it has never left, really.
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Wow.
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Wow.
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I know for those who may not know, when Tom mentions Asbury, of course, he's talking
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about the movement that happened similar to what happened three years ago at Asbury where
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a chapel service never stopped.
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In that case, for I think it was seven days, and they started sending teams of two across
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the nation just to tell the story.
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And everywhere they did, revival broke out on the campus, and that happened on your campus
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at Southwestern.
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Oh, it was amazing.
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And here was Southwestern, which perhaps at that time was the largest seminary in the
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nation.
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I'm not sure.
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It makes no difference.
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Really, it was huge.
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And I remember that the next day, there was chapel, of course, which never ended.
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And we went, as I said, through the night into the next day.
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And the next day, a lady by the name of Joanne Shelton, who is a very well-known figure among
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Southern Baptists and a teacher at the seminary, and she was very proper in everything that
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she did.
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And she stood up behind the microphone, and she said, they've asked me to sing today.
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And she said, I'm going to sing a song, which I always resisted.
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I thought it was sort of a silly, sort of a hokey little song.
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But after what's happened in my heart, I just had to start singing.
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Shackled by a heavy burden.
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And she sang, He Touched Me.
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And we were all in tears, and I still am.
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Yeah.
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Just singing.
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You know, you don't, you can, when you've been in the presence of God, you can close
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your eyes and go right back there.
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I mean, it was so, it's so different.
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It's so extraordinary that it just, it touches you, just like she sang about, and in unusual
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ways.
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And Tom, as it touched you, I know some of the ways that it shaped you, because I've
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walked with you all these years, and we were all, you and Jim and I, we're all in the Jesus
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movement.
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I think you and I are like eight years apart, seven or eight years apart, but we were all
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impacted by it.
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And how did that environment and that experience, and just the whole theological principle of
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revival and awakening and the Spirit's movement, how has that impacted your life and ministry?
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Well, it has impacted my life and continues to impact my life profoundly, because it was
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an introduction for me into a serious study of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, which
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in many churches was sort of a neglected doctrine.
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And also, it was an invitation, Bill, to, I use this term sometimes, it's an oxymoron,
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by the way, divine coincidence.
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What's divine can't be a coincidence.
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Coincidence is not divine, but yet it's sort of, you'll understand it, I'll tell you a
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story if you have time to illustrate what I'm talking about.
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It was a welcome invitation into the wonderful, immediate, and supernatural presence of the
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Lord to walk with Jesus and just to see Him.
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And as I said, people begin to see God in things that normally they would just, they
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would never even blink an eye and think that God had anything to do with it.
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May I tell a story here?
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Would that be all right with you?
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Sure.
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Well, in the middle of this, I was pastoring the First Baptist Church of Mansfield, which
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is about 40 miles away from the seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.
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And I was in a Saturday morning deacons meeting.
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As I said, I was just reeling with what God was doing.
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And here were our men, most of them very, you know, quite old, older, let me just say.
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And we had this prayer meeting.
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There were 13 deacons there and myself and a couple of other men.
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And it was a long prayer meeting.
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And I heard the phone ringing in the office.
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I thought, whoo, that'll give me an opportunity to go answer the phone.
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So I slipped out of the room and answered the phone.
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And it was a friend of mine from college days who was working in California at a home for
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unwed mothers.
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And she had led a young lady to the Lord who was pregnant.
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And she encouraged the lady to go back to her home in Buena Vista, Colorado, and to
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make amends with her father.
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Well, she did.
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And in the process of that, God began to work in her heart and in the hearts of her friends.
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She's telling me this on the phone.
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And she said, that girl is so excited about what God's doing.
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She would love to have a revival meeting there in Buena Vista.
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And we'd like for you to preach it.
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You know, here's this phone call.
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And I said, well, June.
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Her name was June.
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I said, June, she said, you pray about it.
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I'll be back to you.
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Well, I walked back into that meeting, that prayer meeting with those men.
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It had broken up by that time.
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I said, you won't believe this.
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And I was sort of, I don't know if I had a smirk, but I said, yeah, I got this call.
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And I related what happened to the call.
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One of the men, a businessman in the church, said, I think you ought to go, and I will
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pay the way for anybody that wants to go.
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The vice president of the local bank said, I will go with you as one of them.
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So there ended up being several of us who went out the next week.
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She had said, we want to do it starting next week, have a revival next week.
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And so she said, so the next week we were on a plane.
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We flew to Colorado.
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We got a car.
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They met us in a car.
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And by the way, it was exactly like you think.
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It was a van that was all decorated.
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But anyway, I won't go there.
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And we drove across the mountains to Buena Vista.
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Got there way after midnight.
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Went to this lodge and opened the door.
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And there were students all over the floor praying that God would bring revival.
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And we just arrived.
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And they were asking God to move in that town.
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Now, how do you account for this?
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So we got down and started praying with them.
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And when morning came, there was a ring of the doorbell.
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And I went to the door, and there's an elderly man standing there.
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And he said, I hear there's revival here in town.
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And y'all want to meet down at the high school.
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And I can go down and help you set up chairs.
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And I said, what?
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And they said, yeah, this is what we're going to do.
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We're going to meet down in the high school.
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I said, who's announced this?
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They said, nobody.
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What churches are involved?
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Well, we don't know anything.
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They didn't know anything about anything.
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As we say in Oklahoma, come here from sickdom.
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They just didn't know.
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And so we all went down and moved chairs.
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And I remember it was the Buena Vista Demons or Devils or something like that.
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And I remember planting a chair right square on the demon head and saying,
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I hope somebody gets saved here.
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To me, God was just sweeping in.
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When we went there that night, the place was packed.
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I mean, we had a heart.
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And so there was a wire band that was going to sing.
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And so they got up, and they sang and sang and sang.
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And then I thought, I don't know what to say.
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And so I spoke for about 10 or 15 minutes, and people came running.
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I'm just talking about students and adults, their parents, to the altar
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to come to know Christ as their Savior.
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Somebody said the next day, you ought to go out to the –
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down in Colorado Springs, there's a penitentiary.
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You ought to go to that.
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We went down there.
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I think there were about 11 or 12 men that came to know Christ
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and came back for the meeting that night, packed again.
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Over half of the high school students in that town
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came to know Christ during that time.
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Do you remember this story with the phone?
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Hey, can you preach a meeting next week?
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Some place you don't even know, people you don't even know.
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And not only that, but the first night, I said,
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I said, I don't know what to do here, folks.
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I said this publicly.
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I said, do we have any pastors here?
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We had seven pastors.
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They all came forward.
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We began to bond.
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Over the next years, we would meet together and pray together
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and had friendship together.
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God moved in that town, and it all started.
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You know, we have this idea, this can't happen.
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It all started.
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Like I say, how do you explain that except the word,
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was it a coincidence?
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Was it divine?
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It was divine.
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It was divine, but it had every mark of just happening, just happening.
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One thing.
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I began – that's right.
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And I began to realize, and you know, Bill,
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I had grown up in a sound – and I want to get to this in a minute –
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a sound theological setting and good, strong churches with a dad
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and a granddad who were pastors.
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And I loved that, and I loved that setting, and God had blessed that.
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But God just moved in and said, I'm here.
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I'm here.
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Just listen to me.
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Work with me.
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And you have no idea what will happen if you will just reach up,
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take my hand, and aggressively cooperate with me.
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And so that's the first thing that it did in my heart, Bill.
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I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but it does help me.
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Oh, it's incredible.
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And, you know, something you said at the very beginning of that,
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you know, having studied revival now since the Jesus movement
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for 50-plus years like you have, every – I think I can carefully say this.
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Every single nationwide revival, two things have happened.
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There's been a rise of desperation in the nation that has led to
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extraordinary prayer before those movements have happened.
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But there's also been, in almost all of them,
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a return to the teaching about the Holy Spirit.
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That teaching had been lost and usually lost because somebody decided
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it was too dangerous, that it was too unusual.
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And so they went way far to the other ditch
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and didn't talk about the Holy Spirit at all.
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So you just took God out of the equation.
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But that marked the Jesus movement, and it's marking what's happening right now.
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Well, I would say, quite honestly, that a second thing that God made me
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very aware of, and I have remained that way ever since,
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and that is that there is – and here is a word for pastors, okay?
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Well, for all of us, but especially for pastors.
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And that is, most revivals, as you know, and you've alluded to this,
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most revivals die in the hands of excess.
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And you go off on one tangent or another,
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and then it just begins to bleed out like that.
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But the antidote, the cure for that is to have pastors –
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and I'll just use the word pastor there,
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because I'm thinking of that man in particular.
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Pastors have upon them the incredible burden to be theologically correct,
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but they need to be – and this is revival –
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they need to learn how to be correct theologically and sacrificial
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and sharing that in a gracious and soft way.
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Because we find ourselves dealing all of a sudden with people who are –
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they're brand new at this.
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In fact, they just – hey, they went down and got a Bible.
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And so when you take those people into churches where you have a pastor
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who's maybe theologically correct, but he's correct with a frown,
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and he's more interested in – make sure you don't go over the line here.
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Well, theological correctness is imperative, absolutely,
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because if you're not, well, then you're teaching the wrong thing, obviously.
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But at the same time, there is another imperative,
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and that is the need to share that in a gracious, understanding,
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long-suffering, hard-working way with another generation
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in such a fashion that they don't turn up their nose and say,
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you know, you've got all those beliefs, and you say,
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believe this, this, this, this, and you're okay, you know,
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and I'd just like to go where the action is.
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Well, somehow we need to see that those two get wedded
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in a more effective way than any other time
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when you have both a moving of the Holy Spirit
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and a framework that is theologically correct.
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Yeah. You know, Tom, as you're describing that,
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you just can't help but think biblically about Jesus
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walking along the streets of Nazareth or Jerusalem or wherever,
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and the Pharisees, and the Pharisees were doctrinally correct in some ways,
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but they were not open to the movement of God,
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and so they were judgmental and harsh,
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and I know you and I experienced during the Jesus movement
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so many churches in America that the revival just passed them right by,
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and the reason is they didn't want hippies,
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they didn't want guitars, they didn't want all these young people
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messing up their floors and all that kind of stuff,
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and so there's got to be a greater passion for people
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than there is just for doctrinal correctness.
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I mean, you don't compromise doctrines,
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but also you don't lord it over people,
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and you take people where they are.
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Goodness, we were wanting to see a lot of people say, yeah.
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They're newborns, and newborns are messy.
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I mean, and what do we do?
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We say, well, this is a newborn.
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Now, the thing about it is it requires a parent to invest themselves
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in patiently bringing that child along until they grow into adulthood, if ever.
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Bill, I've wondered if you ever did,
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but anyway, the point is there has to be this grace of understanding
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and tolerance, not of bad doctrine, but okay, let's talk about this,
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and I think it threw some pastors, it threw them into a quandary.
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They didn't know what to do, and it tested with this question,
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for whom are you working?
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For whom are you preaching?
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Who are you serving here?
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Who are you trying to please?
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Because if you are with it, with Jesus in hand,
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well, then you're going to do as Jesus did.
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He didn't scorn people like that.
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He welcomed questions.
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I mean, he welcomed questions.
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He didn't answer a lot.
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He only answered three questions, really, many would say,
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and there may be one or two more, but I think that's true.
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But he asked over 100 questions of other people, you know,
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so that's a good teaching.
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You know, what do you think about this?
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So it's a gracious kind of thing.
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It's shaped by ministry.
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It's shaped by ministry.
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I thought, I want to be like that.
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I want to be like Christ.
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And so many other pastors did as well.
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You have to give that to them.
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Laver did it well.
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It was a little bit of a sea change.
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Yeah, something that's interesting, Tom,
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is I'm on college campuses a fair amount,
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and talking to college students,
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there's a phenomena in this movement right now
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that I don't remember being in the Jesus movement.
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And the phenomena is almost every college student
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that I'm with as a 74-year-old man says,
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would you teach me?
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Would you help me?
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And there is this desire for mentors, for disciples,
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and they're like little birds that are just sitting there waiting.
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And I think my evaluation, I'm not sure it's right,
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but I think it may be,
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is this generation is so much more of a fatherless generation
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that they are looking for dads.
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They're looking for spiritual dads and moms.
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And there's a humble, pliable spirit
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about these that I've encountered.
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It's really a beautiful thing.
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But on the flip side, what it requires of us
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is to not stand there with our nose in the air,
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but to be fathers, to be grandfathers to them,
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and to love them and take them where they are
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and mentor them and help them.
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You know, Bill, you and I had a real privilege
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in that we had a father and a grandfather who were preachers.
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And some who have grandfathers and fathers who are preachers
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and it wasn't a privilege, but for us it was,
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remains that way.
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But my, and Bill's, grandfather, he was known all up and down
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the border between Oklahoma and Arkansas
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as a doctrinal teacher.
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And as a matter of fact,
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he wrote a list of questions which were used
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at my ordination with 142 questions.
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Believe it or not, if they didn't ask me that many,
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I would have died.
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But he wanted to know I knew the right answers to all those.
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But he was considered a hero among dozens of,
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what do we call them, original Americans or Native Americans
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or what do we call them now?
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Dozens of people who populated Oklahoma at that time
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who did not have fathers who could teach them anything.
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And he became a father to them.
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Now, the thing that made the difference was his spirit.
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He could laugh at himself.
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He could take a question and say,
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hmm, I don't know the answer.
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Let me come back tomorrow on that.
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And that's, I think that's what students look for.
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Yeah.
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That spirit is the exact words.
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And by the way, by the time he did my ordination,
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that 142, he did ask, well, no, mine was 168.
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So he had asked questions if he knew that I just early met him.
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But you know how many he asked me of those?
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He asked me three questions.
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How many?
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Three.
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He asked me three.
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They were the most important, you know,
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and I don't remember what they were today.
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But he was, I tell you, here's a great word.
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He was kind.
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Yes, that's what I'm talking about.
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He was kind.
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And so it's not a surprise when we get in the car like we did and drive.
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You know, we took that three-day trip, drove around with him in the car,
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all these little small places.
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And he would say, here is a place where, what was it?
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We baptized 162 people one day.
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You know, oh, my gracious, a lot.
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In those days, goodness, it's amazing.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It really is.
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What a heritage.
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And what a message to us about the way we need to be used of God.
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You know, I've got a dear friend of mine and Tom of yours, Bob Bakke.
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And we were talking the other day because both of us had said,
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at this stage of our life, all we want to do is invest in the next generation.
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That's all I want to do.
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And I don't want to be in charge of anything.
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I'm not doing that to get a big ministry or to have a name or anything like that.
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I just want to do everything we can to help the next generation have a leg up
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and be able to do what they need to do, you know.
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And that's our calling and that's our task.
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Well, I was asked this very day by a lady in a country who is as far away from me
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as you can get on this globe, literally the opposite side of the globe.
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And she asked me if I would mentor this young man who lives here in the United States.
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Not her son, but another young man.
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She said, he needs a mentor.
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I said, well, of course I would.
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And that's what we need.
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That's it.
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Tom, I'm going to ask you one more, just a brief question,
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and then I want you to pray to lead us in a moment of prayer for all this.
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God has given you vast experience on the mission field,
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leading one of the largest mission agencies in the world.
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And also now your children and grandchildren are on the mission field in various continents.
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And what are you seeing?
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I know we just heard a report from the head of the Southern Baptist mission organization,
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Paul Chitwood, that applications for missionary assignment in that organization are up 400%.
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What does that say to you about this moment?
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Well, you have to look at this moment in two ways.
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One, your question is more, what does it say to us here in America about this moment?
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Because we're dealing with a mission organization's report, and they entirely, they have, you know,
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initially it's a United States organization going around the world.
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It says that we are training.
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We have, I wish I could share with you what's happening on some particular campuses
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that God has allowed me to be able to work with recently,
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but we have a generation of students who are ready to go to the ends of the earth.
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And here's the issue, Bill.
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This is what's important.
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We have finally awakened as the church.
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We have finally awakened to the fact that you can't get in most of the countries in this world as a missionary.
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You do that, and they say, turn around and go home.
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But you can get in as a scientist.
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You can get in as a teacher.
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You can get in as a doctor.
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And so all of a sudden, these people who are applying, they're called.
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They're called to do their doctoring, their teaching, their, you know, exploration.
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They're called to do it.
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But in another setting, so they can be with people who desperately need to hear the gospel.
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Now, let's go to the other side of the globe, however.
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There are phenomenal mission movements on the other side of the globe.
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All, I say the other side, all over this globe.
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There are people in countries around this world who live and breathe being someplace else and telling folks about Jesus.
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I just wish I could tell you the stories about people.
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I mean, in fact, the president, the former president of one of these organizations called me yesterday.
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And I wish I could just tell you the stories of what's happening.
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And so what is happening is that it's a dream.
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We're beginning to see a linkage between us and other missionaries and other organizations around the world.
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And with more people coming to Christ than ever, ever, ever, we could imagine.
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We still have a long way to go to see every person in this world hear the gospel.
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But, you know, we have a wonderful opportunity.
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We have a great God.
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We have a wonderful calling.
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And most of all, we have the blessed Holy Spirit dwelling within us, glorifying Christ within us,
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teaching us what it is to adore the Father and walk in love with him.
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Because all this is about the ultimate expression of his love for us.
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And I just I cannot tell you how excited I am at 82 about these days.
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Yeah, I could.
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If I if I if we were together, I could give an offering and an invitation right now.
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So that's a little bit.
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Yes, it was just you and me.
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I'd give everything.
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Absolutely.
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Well, Tom, I want you to we always close this time by inviting the people to pray with us, not listen to you praying.
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But so would you would you lead us and our listeners to just pray for all of these things?
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And and for this, I believe we're in the foothills of the next great awakening and pray that it would accelerate.
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We would cooperate with God.
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And so just lead us in prayer for a moment.
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Would you do that?
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Blessed Father, as we come before you in the wonderful and matchless name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
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guided by you, Holy Spirit, in our prayers, determined to exalt the Father,
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whose purpose is for the world to see his glory through the love that he expresses to his children and be drawn to him.
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Father, I pray that you would find this as humble penitence, first of all,
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knowing that there are so many areas of our life that we don't just fall short.
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There are areas of our life where we deliberately sin.
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And Lord, we want to lay down everything, anything in our lives that would keep us from having total,
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absolute fellowship with you walking in the fullness of our Holy Spirit.
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And so, Father, we start out admitting that.
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And to whatever extent we need to get off in a room and go through that in detail, we we say to you, Father, we're willing to do that.
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We don't want anything to hinder your fullness in our life.
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Father, we pray, we long, we see that the only answer for us is spiritual awakening in our nation, Lord.
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The nation is the desolation of this nation, its principles, its character, even its spiritual practice, Lord, is so fragmented and so confused.
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And yet we see, Lord, that in the midst of this, like a diamond being purified over time and pressure, Lord, we see that that's happening to your church as well.
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And Lord, while we welcome that, we shudder to think what it means for each one of us.
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And so, Lord, in this prayer, I have to pray that you will find us willing.
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Yes, Lord, willing for you to do whatever you have to do in order for us to live in absolute abandonment to you.
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And so, Father, we trust you for that.
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We pray for that for our nation.
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We know that there are people around this world, Lord, humble believers, Lord, who pray for us.
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The idea they would ever even have something like the kind of meal we put on a table or the kind of car we drive or even a car is foreign to them, not just because they're foreigners, but where they live, they could never imagine it.
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And they're praying for us because they see that all these things are mere distractions which draw us away from the Great Commission and draw us away from intimate fellowship with you.
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So, Father, I pray that you will open our hearts to all that you would have to say and draw us, Lord, continually more and more deeper and deeper into the depths of what it means to know you, to love you, to serve you, and to live out the lives that you give us.
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And I pray these things, Jesus, in your wonderful name.
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Amen.
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Amen.
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Amen.
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Well, Tom, thanks so much.
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I have been kidding you, but I'm the same.
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Nobody I respect any more than my big brother, although he is considerably less handsome than I am.
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But, you know, that's just an accident.
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There's just nothing you can do about that.
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But love you.
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And thank you, folks, for joining us today.
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And if you enjoyed this, I want to encourage you to go back and watch the other interviews.
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We've heard from some great folks.
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And each one of them has brought us a little different understanding of what revival, how revival changes our lives and should change our lives.
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And so we pray it's an encouragement to you.
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Encourage other people to listen and send them a link.
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And we'll see you next time.