Latest / Faith Church Podcast / Beyond Ordinary Prayer | Travis Rosenthal | Faith Church

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Beyond Ordinary Prayer | Travis Rosenthal | Faith Church · Faith Church Podcast

0:00
So I'm going to tell you guys something you already
0:02
know. Your pastor's a really great guy. We met
0:09
over the phone for like 30 minutes, and I'm going
0:12
to be honest with you, don't tell anybody I said
0:14
this, okay? But there's some people I got to
0:16
talk to for 30 minutes, and I'm like, please,
0:19
Lord, when's it going to end? But your pastor,
0:23
I sat down with him and I was like, man, it's
0:25
already been an hour. You want to just go get
0:27
a cup of coffee real quick and talk a little
0:29
bit more and get to know each other? He's a great
0:31
guy. And pastor, I just thank you for the opportunity
0:34
to come and speak before your people. It's a
0:39
privilege and an honor. And I'm really going
0:40
to hope and pray that I don't fall off this thing
0:43
because I am a little ADHD and don't pay attention
0:48
to all the details often. So I come to you from
0:53
a holy land with my wife. Stand up, Sydney. This
0:58
is my beautiful wife. And this holy land is known
1:03
as Springfield, Missouri, the Mecca of the Assemblies
1:07
of God. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Me and my wife
1:10
lived in Arkansas. I moved to Arkansas when I
1:12
was 12 years old. We raised our budget. We've
1:16
still got just a little bit to raise, but we're
1:17
just right at the finish line. We raised it enough
1:20
to start doing the ministry full time there.
1:22
And we've just went full send for the call of
1:25
God. How many of you have heard of the World
1:29
Prayer Center? Just a few of you guys last night,
1:33
right? That's what I was hoping for. So the World
1:36
Prayer Center is a brand new ministry that the
1:38
Assemblies of God is doing. Is it okay if I step
1:40
down off of this thing? Okay, okay. I didn't
1:42
want a full -blown manifestation. You know, some
1:44
people are like, don't step out of the box, man.
1:47
You know, it gets a little wild some places.
1:51
So the World Prayer Center is a brand new ministry
1:53
started by the Assemblies of God. And pretty
1:55
much the way this began is we began to look at
1:57
our culture, the United States of America, and
2:00
the place that was once known as the great gospel
2:02
enterprise is no longer the great gospel enterprise.
2:06
See, nowadays you look around and you can see,
2:08
I mean, in Pennsylvania, they have a beautiful
2:11
city block that is now dedicated where people
2:14
can go together and do fentanyl and heroin and
2:16
whatever they want to do legally. They don't
2:18
have to worry about it. You go to California,
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you've got Skid Row. It's the same kind of situation
2:22
in Las Vegas, Nevada. They have the first ever
2:25
legal brothel, a house of prostitution. America
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has fallen from grace. She's no longer the place
2:35
where the gospel is front and center. She's now
2:37
the place where the LGBTQ agenda has infiltrated
2:41
the church. She's the place where the church
2:44
is no longer talking about the gospel. They're
2:46
talking about politics. And she's the place where
2:50
prayer is now outlawed in some schools, but they
2:53
want to vote for Sharia law from the Islamic
2:55
religion. And places like Texas and New York
2:58
City, America is no longer centered around the
3:01
gospel that we were built upon. And even though
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the forefathers were not perfect godly men, they
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knew what it was to bring Judeo -Christian values
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into a culture and build a culture off of that.
3:12
And one of the things we see is, as I said last
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night, is it's like the book of Judges, where
3:17
after Joshua had brought Israel into the promised
3:20
land, there was a generation that grew up that
3:22
did not know what God had done for the generation
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before them. And it was simply because mom and
3:28
dad didn't sit down and take care of their daughters
3:31
and their sons and begin to tell them about the
3:33
God that they knew from the beginning. As a matter
3:35
of fact, they sat down and they got comfortable
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and they said, let's look at all of our blessings.
3:40
Let's look at all the good things God is doing
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and we'll just hope that our kids learn it by
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proxy, by osmosis. And the thing about humans
3:49
is maybe we can all agree is, you know, maybe
3:51
not you, but humans are dumb by nature. We're
3:55
forgetful. We're selfish. And so what began to
4:00
take place in America was when we got a little
4:02
comfortable and we sat down, we moved away from
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the foundation of the Christian life. I want
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you to hear me, friend. The Christian life is
4:12
not about being a good person. You can't do it
4:15
even if you tried. You're bound just like the
4:18
rest of us. The Christian life is not about how
4:20
many pages of the Bible you read every day. The
4:22
devil knows Scripture better than any of us.
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And he's not saved. The Christian life is about
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a right relationship with God. And that comes
4:33
through the place of prayer. And when we look
4:36
at the culture today, we can see that the number
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one problem, the number one reason we began to
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fall away from the Christian values that we were
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founded on, the number one reason this nation
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that used to be known as the great gospel enterprise
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has now crumbled into pagan idolatry and secular
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humanism and all sorts of other issues is simply
4:57
because people in the church quit praying. They
5:02
quit worrying about relationship with God. Well,
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how do you know this, Travis? Well, the Assemblies
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of God statistician, his name is Mike Clarenshaw.
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You guys can look him up. He's released a statistic.
5:17
Now, a little fun fact about the Assemblies of
5:19
God before I say this is we were built as a group
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of people who prayed. There was a one -eyed African
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-American man who was a former slave. All the
5:27
cards were stacked against him. He had no hope
5:30
of doing anything really in the culture. Because
5:33
of the color of his skin, he was not allowed
5:35
to sit in a Bible college classroom. He had to
5:37
sit outside of the door. And that man prayed
5:40
for eight hours a day until a move of God hit
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America called the Azusa Street Revival. And
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that's when the Pentecostal movement really exploded,
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what it was born out of. We were built as a people
5:54
of prayer. But now the statistic is that we have
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85 million people in the United States of America
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that attend an Assemblies of God church, and
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only 2 -4 % of them pray monthly as a body. We've
6:14
fallen. We've simply forgotten what it is to
6:19
know God. We've grown comfortable with His activity.
6:24
with his hand, but we missed his face. And just
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as I told some of the individuals last night,
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one of the problems in America is that we can
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enjoy the benefits of someone's past relationship
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with God and still not know him. I can enjoy
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the benefit of the carpenter that built this
6:44
building, the benefit of the concrete worker
6:47
that paved the road outside. I can enjoy the
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work of their hands and recognize it, but it
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doesn't mean that I know the one who did it.
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And when you have a group of people who they
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come and they go to church and they don't even
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pray together, I do have to ask a simple question.
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And we were having fun earlier and I'm about
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to suck all the fun out of the room for a minute.
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But I have to ask a very simple question. Do
7:10
you even know Christ? If you can't sit and be
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with Him. And so at the World Prayer Center,
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our mission is to take the level of prayer in
7:24
America and raise it up even just a little bit.
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And we do this in three ways. The first one is
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we invite pastors and staff and laity, everybody
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from the church to come to the prayer center
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in Springfield, Missouri. And we have a day of
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training and prayer. Now when I say a day of
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training, a lot of prayer conferences are six
7:47
hours of preaching and then 20 minutes of praying.
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We don't do that. We're going to talk to you
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for an hour, hour and a half tops, and you're
7:54
going to go pray for two or three with us. And
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we've got, everybody loves the room. It's got
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this giant 600 square foot LED floor connected
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to Google Earth. I told your pastor we need to
8:04
get you guys to come sometime, so maybe if you
8:06
bug him enough, he'll get something scheduled
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with me. The other way we do this, Because what
8:13
I'm doing right now, we travel as evangelists
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across the nation. Anywhere that wants to invite
8:17
us, we come, we preach on prayer, and we try
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to just bring the level of prayer up by giving
8:22
people a burden to pray and teaching them what
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prayer does in a culture. And the third way is
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by hosting what we're calling prayer sieges based
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off the ministry of Charles Finney. Charles Finney
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was a man. He was probably one of the greatest
8:39
evangelists to ever live. He's known as a grandfather
8:40
of revival. He would go into a city 30 days after
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his intercessors, Daniel Nash and Abel Cleary.
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They would go in, they would pray for 12 -hour
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shifts for 24 hours. How many of you guys would
8:52
like that job? That'd be a difficult job. They'd
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pray for 12 hours apiece. And then when they
9:00
would get done praying, they would tell Finney,
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the Lord has come. And when Finney would go into
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a city, it wasn't like, you know, in this time
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they didn't have Instagram or Facebook or TikTok.
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They didn't post flyers. They didn't have printers
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to really do all this kind of stuff. At this
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time, Finney would go into a city and he would
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just go wherever God led him. And the effect
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his ministry would have after he left was astronomical.
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Fifteen years after Finney had been to a city,
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Evangelists would come in and they would ask
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a question, has Finney come here? And if they
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said yes, they'd go, pack the bags, boys. We're
9:41
going down the road. And when people asked why,
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they would call it burn over grounds. Because
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even 15 years later, the bars would still be
9:49
closed down. 15 years later, the crime rate would
9:52
still be down. People would actually be selling...
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selling their businesses and their buildings
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and giving the money to the church so the church
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could expand to fit the people that were coming
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in. But here's the fun part. Finney's ministry
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only lasted 10 years. His ministry ended when
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Daniel Nash and Abel Cleary died. He said, when
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the intercessors were gone, my ministry didn't
10:20
matter anymore. So he dedicated the rest of his
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life to teaching students at Oberlin College.
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And he began to teach them about prayer and evangelism,
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about intercession, and even theology about revival.
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And many of his students went on to partake in
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the Second Great Awakening, which changed the
10:40
culture in the United States. So at the World
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Prayer Center, we go to any city that wants to
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have us, and we pray for 10, 12 hours a day as
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a team. And we host revival type services and
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we see God move. And we're hoping that combining
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all three of those things together, we can begin
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to get people excited for the place of prayer
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again. How many of you guys think that's an awesome
11:08
ministry? Wonderful. Wonderful. So a little bit
11:13
about me. You know, I'm not a preacher's kid.
11:18
I didn't grow up in ministry. As a matter of
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fact, if you look at my life, you would think,
11:22
how in the world did that guy end up at a pulpit?
11:26
I grew up in a house where my father was absent.
11:29
My mother was a raging alcoholic and a drug addict.
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And by the way, I grew up in a land not too far
11:36
from here. Not too far from Illinois. Some of
11:38
you guys would call it a mission field. It's
11:40
a place called Springfield. How many of you guys
11:43
have been to Springfield? Yeah. Yep. And so in
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Springfield, my mom, although she really tried,
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she was not a great mother. Is that okay? Is
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that acceptable for me to say that? Can we just
12:01
be honest for a minute? She's probably watching
12:03
the live stream right now. I love you, Mom. Do
12:08
what? Yeah, she's great now. I was getting there.
12:13
I was getting there. My wife is trying to be
12:14
like, smooth it out a little bit. Smooth it out.
12:18
Damage control. But she wasn't that great. She
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tried, but she was broken. She grew up in a home
12:27
where when their father died, they kind of celebrated
12:29
on Christmas Day. He was not a good man. He beat
12:34
their mother. He beat the kids. So in my home,
12:39
we didn't really do much with Christmas. Jesus
12:43
was never mentioned. As a matter of fact, in
12:46
my home, I would say Jesus was a cuss word. The
12:49
only time you heard his name is when somebody
12:50
stubbed their toe or you turned on TV and somebody
12:54
was blaspheming him as a joke. We didn't go to
12:58
church. I'd never heard the gospel. And so growing
13:02
up, there was no message or idea of hope in my
13:07
life. Dad wasn't around. Mom was cruel. And add
13:14
on top of all of that, we grew up and we were
13:16
dirt poor. I'd go to school and kids would make
13:19
fun of me because my shoes would be falling apart.
13:23
Not knowing that when I went home that day, I
13:25
would either be without electricity or water,
13:27
and I wouldn't know when my next meal came in
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outside of school. How many of you guys know
13:34
that that creates a catastrophic mindset growing
13:41
up? When I was 12 years old and we moved to Arkansas,
13:46
you would think things got better because we
13:48
moved to the Bible Belt. You know, the Bible
13:52
Belt is not so fascinated with the Bible. See,
13:57
we were surrounded by Assemblies of God, Pentecostal
13:59
churches, but nobody had ever shared the gospel
14:01
with me. And when my mom got down there, you
14:04
know, we moved to a dry county, so I don't know
14:06
how many of you guys know what that means, but
14:08
you can't just go to the store and buy alcohol.
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Like, you've got to go a distance to do that.
14:13
So my mom found a drug called methamphetamine.
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How many of you guys have heard of that one?
14:19
That one's wild. She began doing meth. She began
14:25
selling a little bit of meth. And then on top
14:28
of that, she would just drive an hour away to
14:29
get a bunch of alcohol and sell that too from
14:31
the house. We had all kinds of fun. I say that
14:36
sarcastically. When I was 12 years old, I had
14:39
a kid at school come up to me and he was like,
14:40
hey man, you seem like you're one of us. And
14:42
he said, here, he's an older kid. He was like,
14:43
here, let's smoke some weed together. Cool. Might
14:47
as well. I'm already drinking on the weekends.
14:51
Already partying. So 12, you know, getting drunk
14:55
on the weekends, smoking weed every day. And
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then they started introducing me to things like
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Oxycontin. You know, I took eight 100 -milligram
15:03
Seroquel one day, overdosed in class, and they
15:06
were like, we cannot have this kid in here anymore.
15:08
He is out of hand. By the time I was 14 years
15:13
old, I was already arrested a few times. Now,
15:16
the cops had mercy on me because they knew who
15:18
my mom was, so they would just take me back home
15:20
and take whatever they found on me. But when
15:23
I was 15 years old, that grace ran out. They
15:26
did not care. Didn't care. And so, at 15 years
15:33
old, my mother goes to jail for 30 days. And
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I was staying with some cousins and, you know,
15:41
I told them to take me back home because I was
15:43
scared people were robbing what little that I
15:44
had. And they did. I walk in my house and the
15:50
door on my trailer is ripped open. All of my
15:53
clothes are everywhere. Doors are kicked in,
15:56
dresser stuff gone. They'd effectively raided
15:58
my house because they knew our tax money came
16:00
in, and they were looking for the four grand
16:01
my mom got from the government. They found it.
16:06
And so I began hopping from house to house, from
16:09
couch to couch, trying to figure it out. You
16:12
can't get a hold of mom. She's in jail. She was
16:15
in there for 34 days, and she had an ulcer rupture,
16:17
so they cut her open from rib down to below her
16:21
belly button. They did an experimental surgery
16:24
and saved her life. While she's in the hospital,
16:27
she decides to pick up a Bible, a Gideon's Bible,
16:30
and start reading in the book of Psalms. Now
16:31
listen, for the life of me, I don't know why
16:36
you would pick up a book and start reading it
16:38
from the very beginning, or from the middle.
16:41
I would assume that you would pick it up and
16:43
start reading from Genesis, but I think that
16:44
would have confused her more. So she's reading
16:46
Psalms, and in one second, David's really happy,
16:49
and in the very next page, he's like, I want
16:51
to die. And she's like, what is going on with
16:54
this guy? And so she starts doing some Googling
16:57
and finding out this is a guy that's known as
16:59
a man after God's own heart. He was a king. He
17:01
was chosen. And, you know, he committed adultery
17:04
and then murdered a lady's husband. And she's
17:06
like, man, this guy is just about as messed up
17:08
as I am. Now, I think he probably would have
17:11
said, Teresa, you're a little bit worse than
17:12
me. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Again, mom,
17:15
I know you're watching. I love you. But she begins
17:21
reading and she begins wrestling with this idea
17:23
of this man known as a man after God's own heart
17:25
is suffering. And she thought if there was a
17:29
God, he must not be real because he doesn't love
17:31
me and I am suffering. And so what she does is
17:37
she decides to pull all the tubes out of her
17:39
stomach and walk home from the hospital. Because
17:43
she just can't handle what's going on inside
17:45
of her. God had effectively begun doing a work
17:48
in her that she was not comfortable with. And
17:50
she ends up miraculously meeting a woman that
17:52
was preaching to her in the jail. And she sits
17:56
down and has dinner with our pastor. She gets
17:58
saved, gives her life to Christ. And I mean,
18:00
it wasn't like, oh, she's saved, but she's being
18:03
sanctified. You know, whenever we make excuses
18:05
for the new Christian sin, you know, they're
18:07
saved, but they're still sleeping with their
18:09
boyfriend or their girlfriend because they're
18:11
new. I mean, she got saved. She got saved. I
18:16
mean, you came home and she wasn't drinking a
18:17
beer anymore. And I was like, bro, I've never
18:19
known my mom to not drink one day in her life.
18:21
What's going on? She came home and the meth was
18:24
gone. When they came to the house to get dope,
18:26
she was like, you got to leave. I don't do that
18:28
anymore. When they came into the house to buy
18:29
alcohol, she was like, no more. She looked at
18:31
me and said, you can't smoke weed in this house
18:33
anymore. I mean, she was not playing games. She
18:36
got saved. When she got saved, the TV got saved,
18:40
the library got saved, the house got saved. I
18:43
mean, everything got saved. Everything. There
18:46
was nothing there anymore that could not, you
18:49
know, like she was all in for God. And me and
18:51
my sister are thinking, what is this? Who possessed
18:54
you? And I had a problem because I was angry.
18:59
See, by the time I was 15 years old, I'd tried
19:01
to commit suicide on three separate occasions.
19:04
I didn't want to live. I thought about death
19:06
more than life. There was no hope for me. There
19:09
was no hope for anyone else. And I knew that
19:11
I was not a good person. I was mean. I was hateful.
19:14
I got in fights for fun. I was already on my
19:17
way to juvenile detention. Heck, one day prison
19:20
if something didn't happen. I was not a great
19:23
person. You didn't have to convince me of that.
19:25
If I would have believed in a hell, I would have
19:27
been like, yeah, and I'm going to burn. None
19:31
of that. You didn't have to convince me. And
19:34
so my mother walks in the house, and she thinks,
19:36
hey, we're going to go to church. And I was like,
19:39
I bet you are. I bet you are. You're right. You're
19:42
going to go. You're going to go alone. And so
19:44
I had really long hair back then, okay? I had
19:46
really long hair. I got married, and it started
19:48
falling out. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Don't
19:52
look at her. Don't look at her. She never travels
19:57
with me, so I get to pick on her a little bit
19:58
now. She never has the time. My mom kept the
20:01
girls. So anyway, she's like, she's a totally
20:07
different person. I used to watch my mom go to
20:10
the kitchen and drag knives across her arms.
20:17
I mean, she was a different person. There we
20:21
go. We sucked the fun out of the room again.
20:25
Something happened to her. And so she began grabbing
20:29
me by my hair and yanking me to that church building.
20:33
And here's the problem is now this youth pastor
20:36
is like, I have a 15 -year -old punk kid who
20:38
won't listen to anybody. I mean, he's respectful
20:41
enough to sit down in the back, but, you know,
20:42
leave him alone. Don't talk to him. You might
20:46
set him off. He's volatile. And they don't know
20:50
what to do with me, man. Like, they don't know
20:51
what to do with me. I get arrested for stealing
20:53
stuff from Walmart, and they come to the court
20:56
and, like, please make them do community service
20:57
with us. So they gave me 72 hours of community
21:01
service at the church, and the whole time I'm
21:03
digging a ditch that's already dug because they're
21:06
trying to figure out what to do, cleaning chairs,
21:08
vacuuming floors, and they're preaching to me.
21:10
And I'm like, listen, man, I hear you. I just
21:12
don't care. I don't believe in any of it. See,
21:17
I'd have inherited my mother's outlook on life.
21:20
If there is a God and if he is real, then he
21:22
hates me. And that's a whole lot harder to think
21:26
than, ah, there is no God. I'd rather live with
21:30
that than thinking that he hates me for no reason.
21:34
So one day the youth pastor comes to me and he,
21:37
you're the youth pastor, right? Don't ever do
21:39
this. Write this down. Do not do this. Like all
21:46
caps, take three pages and just tape it to the
21:49
wall. Tape it to the mirror at home. He walks
21:51
up to me and he says, hey man, I'm going to invite
21:53
you to this youth convention. And if you come
21:56
with us and you still don't believe in Jesus,
21:57
I'll convince your mom to quit making you go
21:59
to church on Sundays. He says, you've got to
22:02
come on Wednesdays. I mean, I was drunk most
22:05
of the time whenever she took me there on Sundays
22:07
anyway. Hungover, stoned, something. I mean,
22:10
everybody knew I wasn't paying attention. There's
22:12
Travis in the back. We don't know what he's doing.
22:17
And so he convinces me to go, and I was thinking,
22:19
this is going to be perfect. Two days. Two days.
22:26
I got to deal with these annoying people. I just
22:30
got to pretend to be friendly. I got to sit and
22:33
listen to somebody preach for a little bit. I
22:36
get up, go home, and I can laugh in my mother's
22:39
face, and I don't have to go to church again
22:41
on Sunday. Now, I don't know what he was going
22:44
to do because she wasn't going to be cool with
22:48
that deal. She was going to be like, you need
22:50
to tell him and repent to him for lying is what
22:52
she was going to say because that ain't happening.
22:56
Anyway, we go there, and the first night I'm
22:59
making fun of the guy preaching the whole time.
23:01
Like, this guy is stupid. Is it okay if I'm honest
23:05
with you? I'm going to do it anyway. I'm just
23:08
glad that now I have your blessing. I'm thinking
23:11
this guy is stupid. Like he's never lived a hard
23:15
life. He probably comes from a rich family. Look
23:17
at that Rolex on his arm. Those Jordans on his
23:21
feet. He's got this nice tuxedo shirt that I
23:25
could never afford, that we'd never have. I can't
23:27
even eat, and this guy's up here dressed like
23:29
that. He's going to tell me about suffering for
23:30
Christ? No. So night number one, they were like,
23:35
Travis, what do you think? And I was like, Jesus
23:37
is still not real. But night number two rolls
23:41
around. And night number two was a little bit
23:46
different. See, this guy went from, hey, guys,
23:49
we're going to have a great weekend to, like,
23:51
he went straight into Jesus died for you and
23:56
you got two choices. Like, and I'm sitting here
24:00
thinking, yeah, this is what these guys have
24:01
been telling me for six months. And he does the
24:04
weirdest thing ever. He says, I'm going to count
24:07
from three to one, and when I get to one, some
24:09
of you are going to be convicted you need to
24:11
give your life to Christ. I want you to run to
24:12
the front. We all stand, and I'm thinking, one
24:15
more altar call. That's all I have to get through.
24:20
One more of these awkward 20 minutes of people
24:25
walking around looking at you, asking you if
24:28
they can pray for you. One more. And then the
24:32
guy says three. And when he says three, listen
24:37
to me, I'm not one of those people. I didn't
24:39
look up and see heaven and look down and see
24:41
hell. You know, I didn't hear angels singing.
24:44
I didn't hear a voice go, Travis, this is your
24:47
guardian angel speaking. You need to give your
24:49
life to Jesus. I didn't hear that. I didn't hear
24:52
anything like that. But in that moment, something
24:56
hit me down to the depth of my being. And I want
25:00
you all to repeat this word after me. It's called
25:02
conviction. How many of you guys ever felt conviction
25:07
before? I'm talking the conviction of the Lord
25:10
where you're like, I'm going to die and go to
25:14
hell if something doesn't get right. I mean,
25:16
I was sitting here laughing at the guy, and he
25:19
says three, and then I just went stone cold,
25:22
straight faced, like, oh, no. What is going to
25:25
happen? And I'm thinking, okay, hell is real.
25:30
Check. Lake of fire is real. Lovely. He says
25:36
two. And I start connecting the dots. Well, if
25:40
the lake of fire is real, Jesus is real, and
25:42
I'm rejecting him, if I die, I'm going to go
25:45
to hell. How many of you know I wasn't laughing
25:48
anymore? I went from smiling and laughing and
25:52
making fun of the guy to just straight -faced
25:54
shaking. And then he said one. And when he said
25:59
come to the front, I came to the front. Now here's
26:02
the problem. There were about 500 or 600 other
26:04
kids that had the same idea. So the altar's just
26:08
crowded and they're like, pray. And I'm looking
26:10
like this. What do you mean pray? What are you
26:14
talking about? And so finally I sat there and
26:18
I went, okay. Jesus, Father, Holy Spirit, I don't
26:22
know which one of you is listening right now.
26:24
I had no idea what the doctrine of the Trinity
26:26
was. I didn't know anything. And I was like,
26:30
listen, listen. I don't know what you want from
26:33
me, but if you'll show me, I'll give it to you.
26:40
And I heard just this gentle, gentle voice, and
26:44
peace came in my soul, and he said, I'll take
26:46
that deal. And you would think, you know, gold
26:49
dust rained down, and cherubim came, and I spoke
26:51
in tongues. None of that happened either. As
26:54
a matter of fact, I went back home and the experience
26:57
so rattled me that I ran into drugs and alcohol
26:59
and all of that harder than I ever did before.
27:03
Because now I don't know what to do. The entire
27:08
world is different than what I thought it was.
27:11
Have you guys ever been in that moment? You just
27:14
start crashing out because you're like, dude,
27:16
I don't know. I don't even know. And here's the
27:20
interesting thing is instead of being at the
27:23
front and center of the party, you know, playing
27:26
beer pong or taking shots or whatever, I'd be
27:30
in a dark room arguing with a guy I didn't think
27:32
was there. And my friends would be like, what
27:36
happened to that guy? His mom started going to
27:38
church, man. He drank the Kool -Aid. And they'd
27:43
peep in and they'd hear me. Why won't you leave
27:45
me alone? Man, who's he talking to? why won't
27:52
you quit bothering me? And I'd hear that same
27:56
voice say, I thought you said you'd follow me.
28:02
And so after about a year of doing that, I was
28:04
like, you know what? You just took every bit
28:06
of fun out of getting high. Like now I'm miserable.
28:11
I get convicted every time. You know what? Following
28:14
you has got to be better. And so there was a
28:16
day when I bent the knee to Christ. And something
28:20
happened to me. The same thing that happened
28:23
to my mother. The same thing that happened to
28:26
many people that I've known before and after
28:28
that. Where the desire to get drunk no longer
28:32
permeated my being. The desire to get high was
28:37
no longer there. Now I still had a whole lot
28:41
of emotional baggage to work through. It's not
28:43
like Jesus came and was like, let me perfect
28:45
you. Which is what we typically think happens.
28:49
But He came and He took the things that had me
28:52
bound away so that I could begin walking with
28:55
Him. Now here's the problem with that. The church
28:59
that I was in, the reason why we had to go somewhere
29:02
else is what I said last night. Pastor, we were
29:04
Pentecostal. We didn't believe in power. We were
29:07
functional Baptists. It was Whitney Lane Family
29:10
Worship Center on the sign and Assemblies of
29:12
God was in the bottom right corner. They believed
29:15
that prayer worked, but never prayed. And you
29:18
heard three sermons all year round. Pray, read
29:23
your Bible, don't get drunk, don't commit adultery,
29:27
don't sin, have a good day. And the pray part
29:30
was just ask God for whatever you have need of.
29:34
There was no concept of relationship with God.
29:37
There was none of that. And so I feel called
29:40
to ministry at one point, and I go to Bible college,
29:42
and we have to go to Mardi Gras to preach the
29:45
gospel to people at the school I went to. Now,
29:46
how many of you guys have ever been to Mardi
29:47
Gras in New Orleans? Take their names down. Write
29:52
it down. Membership revoked. I'm kidding. We
29:58
had to go down there, and you want to talk about
30:00
a culture shock. I mean, people are stripping
30:02
naked just because you're preaching the gospel
30:04
to them, throwing beer on you, spitting in your
30:06
face. Like, it's a culture shock. And so we're
30:09
down there, and we have meetings with the students,
30:11
and this guy has this altar call, and he pulls
30:14
200 or 300 kids up here, college kids. I mean,
30:17
I'm still young compared to most of you guys,
30:19
but 18 -year -olds. Pulls them up here, and I
30:23
mean, some of them have serious issues, like
30:24
cystic fibrosis, respiratory issues, and whatnot.
30:28
He pulls them up here, and he begins praying
30:30
for them. And they're just like bodies in the
30:32
floor. People are getting healed. Some people
30:34
are crying and screaming. And I'm over here thinking,
30:36
what in the world is going on? This did not happen
30:39
at my church. And so I'm asking some of these
30:42
students, what's happening? And they're like,
30:44
go read the book of Acts. And I'm reading the
30:45
book of Acts, and people are jumping in Peter's
30:47
shadow, hoping they'll get healed. Paul's got
30:49
handkerchiefs that he wipes his sweat on, and
30:52
they lamb on people, and demons leave. And I'm
30:54
thinking, this is exactly what the Christian
30:56
life is supposed to look like, healing the sick,
30:58
raising the dead, and casting out demons. And
31:00
so I'm sitting in school, and I interrupt class
31:03
one day, and it's not even a class on anything,
31:05
really. It's geography. It's the geography of
31:08
Israel. Who cares about that class? And I interrupt,
31:14
and I go, hey, how did that guy heal those kids
31:16
in class? And the lady was like, just pray, and
31:18
then moved on like it was nothing. And so I wrote
31:21
that down. Check. We got to pray. Okay, so I
31:26
go home and I'm sitting down when I'm off work.
31:29
I'm sitting in my room with my Bible in my hand
31:31
and I'm going, how do I pray? Nobody ever taught
31:33
me that. That's a shame. We hope and pray that
31:37
people will come into the church and we hope
31:39
that they'll get saved and they'll give their
31:41
life to Christ, but then we don't do anything
31:43
with them. We expect them to come in and learn.
31:45
I mean, you're telling people to read a book
31:47
that's from thousands of years ago. Like they're
31:49
going to just understand it and pick it up. And
31:51
some things in the book are really simple, but
31:53
some things are not. And part of the call of
31:56
Christ was not to just be somebody who makes
31:58
converts and fills some chairs. It was to be
32:01
somebody who made disciples. And that's not for
32:03
the pastor. That's for everybody. Like your call
32:06
is part of the great commission is to go forth
32:08
and make disciples of all nations. And a disciple
32:11
is somebody who's just like you. It is your responsibility
32:15
to find somebody, even if it's just your children.
32:18
Teach them the ways of Christ. Your job is to
32:21
teach them how to pray, not pastors. Deep breath,
32:27
Travis. It's okay. I told you guys, I get a little
32:30
excited sometimes. He's squirrely, guys. Just
32:34
give him a minute. He'll calm down. But really,
32:38
like, nobody discipled me. I would go ask people
32:40
questions, and they would just say, you got to
32:42
be led by the Spirit, brother. What does that
32:45
mean? I don't know. then why are you telling
32:49
me to do it? You don't know. You've been in church
32:51
for 40 years, and you have no idea what that
32:53
means, and you're telling me that I have to do
32:55
it? And so I would get frustrated, man. I have
33:00
nobody to teach me anything. And I'd sit there
33:02
with my Bible, and I'd be like, okay, God, you've
33:06
got to show me how to pray. And you know what
33:10
began to happen? Over time, I went from knocking
33:14
on a door hoping somebody was listening to where
33:16
it just seemed like the door opened. And there
33:18
was somebody talking back to me. And it took
33:22
time. It wasn't something that I just picked
33:26
up one day and moved on. See, God is spirit and
33:29
He interacts with us in spirit. Not in the way
33:32
that we're used to. You don't hear God like you
33:34
hear me right now. He's inside of you. If you're
33:37
saved, if you're not saved, then He's around
33:39
you and you need to get saved. Given your life
33:43
to Christ, the Holy Spirit is in you, and He
33:45
speaks to you from deep within your being. And
33:47
sometimes that's that simple conviction, and
33:50
sometimes it's a thought that you just cannot
33:52
get away from, that, man, I really need to go
33:54
do this thing. And so I began to live my life
33:57
tuning into that internal impression that I learned
34:01
from prayer, and I began to follow it. And pretty
34:03
soon I had pastors calling me, 20 years old,
34:07
hey, we have a demon -possessed guy at our church,
34:09
and we don't know what to do. That's a problem
34:14
too. We got the same Bible, and you don't know
34:18
how to cast a demon out? Come out. I don't know
34:22
any other way either. Like, I don't know what
34:25
to do. And so I did. I walk in here, and this
34:28
lady's slithering on the floor like a snake,
34:30
and I'm like, I don't know what to do, man. Well,
34:34
you know, she got a group discount. All of them
34:37
left for free. It was beautiful. But things like
34:41
that began to happen. The sick began getting
34:43
healed. I've not raised the dead yet. I really
34:46
want to see that happen. That would be really
34:47
cool. Kind of freaky, but cool. But the point
34:53
was that it was all developed from a lifestyle
34:55
of prayer. Of prayer. You know, God uses people
35:00
that are available, but the only way you show
35:02
that you're available is by taking that first
35:05
step. Everything in the kingdom is about stewarding
35:08
what you already have. You've got a relationship
35:10
with the Holy Spirit. He's living inside of you.
35:12
You want Him to do great things through you or
35:14
in your life and in the lives of others, and
35:16
you can't even steward a relationship with Him.
35:21
I mean, listen, listen. We are judged according
35:24
to the things we know and we do. So if we can't
35:29
do the basic thing, why do we expect Him to give
35:31
us more? Think about that. I think sometimes
35:36
God withholds certain things as a mercy. As a
35:41
mercy because He doesn't want us to be like Ananias
35:43
and Sapphira where the Spirit was being poured
35:47
out upon the people and they told a lie. Something
35:51
that you and I think are small. Just a little
35:54
lie. We got this much money instead of this.
35:58
And God punches the time clock for them permanently.
36:07
The more He moves, the more you and I are accountable
36:10
for. Luke chapter 12 tells that. To the one who
36:16
knows and does otherwise, that one will receive
36:21
a greater punishment than the one who does the
36:23
same and doesn't know. There were things that
36:26
I had done in ignorance that when I came to the
36:30
knowledge of Christ, there was no more excuse.
36:35
But I only learned these things through the power
36:37
of prayer. And I think a lot of people don't
36:41
know how prayer really changes your life and
36:44
the life of the world around you. So I'll tell
36:45
you a few stories about prayer. Stories that
36:50
have changed my life. And I'm a church history
36:52
buff. Not necessarily, you know, 1900s on, but
36:55
like 300 AD, right after the apostles and everybody
36:59
else. And in 400 A .D., right after the church
37:03
becomes legal, there's a man named Anthony. Anthony
37:10
is just like the rich young ruler in the Gospels.
37:15
Both of his parents die from sickness suddenly.
37:18
They've got so much land and farmland and slaves
37:22
and, I mean, money. And they leave him all of
37:25
this as an inheritance. And he goes into a church
37:27
for the first time at 20 years old. And he hears
37:32
Jesus tell the rich young ruler from the reading
37:34
of the scripture, if you want to be my disciple,
37:37
sell everything. Follow me. And Anthony, just
37:44
because he's just like the rich young ruler,
37:46
he would have never told everybody to do this.
37:50
But because he'd lived a good life, he'd heard
37:54
the Christian principles and he'd followed them.
37:56
Anthony knew that this was a call to him. And
38:01
so what Anthony does is he sells everything and
38:04
he puts his sister in a convent for nuns where
38:07
she can be developed and trained by the church.
38:09
And he gives her enough money to where if she
38:12
wanted to leave the convent and not dedicate
38:14
her life to ministry in that time, then she could
38:17
go and have a good life and find a good husband
38:20
and be taken care of and just continue being
38:22
a Christian. But Anthony does the unconventional
38:24
thing and Anthony goes into the desert. into
38:29
the Egyptian wilderness. And he begins to spend
38:33
12, sometimes 15 hours a day in prayer. And I
38:36
hear me, I'm not fixing to tell you guys to do
38:38
that, okay? But Anthony does this because when
38:42
he looks at the state of the church, the church
38:44
has been legal for a hundred years under Emperor
38:46
Constantine. After in the middle of a battle,
38:48
he sees a cross in the sky and he says, man,
38:51
Jesus must be real. And the state of the church
38:54
at this point is not that they were holy anymore.
38:56
See, as a matter of fact, the priests and the
38:59
nuns, everybody, the bishops were involving themselves
39:03
in prostitution and things akin to gambling in
39:08
that time. and pocketing money and leaving the
39:11
poor needy. And Anthony had noticed that the
39:14
church was corrupted by sin. I call Anthony the
39:19
first Protestant. He was the first one to protest
39:23
the state of the Catholic Church. And Anthony
39:25
goes into the wilderness and he says, I'm going
39:28
to pray. And every time he came back into a city,
39:31
things would happen. In one instance, there's
39:33
a young man on a boat who's eating rotten fish
39:36
outside of his mind. His eyes are rolled in the
39:39
back of his head. And they're thinking, we don't
39:41
know what to do with him. He's 14 years old.
39:43
How can we help him? And Anthony goes up to him
39:45
and draws the sign of the cross and says, be
39:47
free in Jesus' name. And that moment, at that
39:50
very second, second the young man comes to his
39:52
right mind. He was demon possessed and nobody
39:54
knew it. In another instance, they had three
39:57
philosophers come to try to prove that Anthony
39:59
was an idiot. And Anthony looks at these philosophers
40:03
and says, look at the dead body behind you. Will
40:05
your philosophy do this? And he lays hands on
40:08
the body and the woman comes back to life. In
40:12
another instance, Anthony goes into a city where
40:14
the emperor, Emperor Maxim, is persecuting Christians.
40:18
Now some of these things I can't say in a room
40:20
full of people where young people might be present,
40:22
but let's just say that if you were a Christian
40:25
woman, you would be forced to work for men. We'll
40:27
put it that way. After you watched your family
40:30
put to death by this emperor. And Anthony goes
40:33
into the city and he begins healing the sick
40:35
and casting out demons. And he goes to the emperor.
40:38
And Anthony does the craziest thing I've ever
40:40
heard of. He gets on his knee and he says, Emperor
40:43
Maxim, I'm a Christian. Why don't you kill me?
40:47
And the emperor looks at him and he says, Anthony,
40:49
I can't kill you. And Anthony says, why can you
40:52
kill my people for what they believe? But you
40:55
can't kill me. And the emperor says something
40:57
really profound because it shows that there was
41:00
a line drawn between a fake nominal Christian
41:03
and someone who knew what the gospel was and
41:06
knew what it was like to live for Christ. He
41:09
looks at Anthony and he says, because you're
41:12
too valuable. He says, there's something special
41:18
about you, Anthony. There's something on you
41:22
that's not on the others. He recognized in Anthony's
41:25
life that there was a touch of God. And Anthony
41:28
looked at him and said, please quit hurting my
41:30
people and kill me. And the emperor said, no.
41:36
And Anthony said, then why don't you quit hurting
41:39
them on my behalf? And the emperor made a deal
41:45
for Father Anthony. You keep coming to my city.
41:50
You keep healing my people. And I'll let yours
41:54
go. One man brought peace to an emperor. Peace
42:00
to a nation. Simply because, and he did nothing
42:03
but sit in what they called a cell. It was a
42:05
cave. And pray. And pray. We wonder why Christians
42:14
are ineffective now. While the nation is burning
42:19
and nothing is changing. And I believe the number
42:22
one issue is because we don't have people with
42:25
a spirit of prayer on them like Father Anthony.
42:28
People don't know what it's like to pray and
42:31
press into God and experience Him. Did you know
42:33
that every miracle Jesus did was coming out of
42:35
His prayer life? He goes to a mountain and he
42:38
prays all night. He comes back down and the sick
42:40
are pressing against him. He looks at the disciples
42:42
and says, get in the boat. They get in the boat.
42:45
They get to the other side and he's met by a
42:47
demon -possessed man. The Gadarene demoniac possessed
42:50
by a legion of demons. And he comes out of the
42:54
boat, casts the demons out of him, and the guy's
42:56
like, please, can I follow you? And Jesus says,
42:59
no, you have to stay in the region. Jesus needed
43:02
a witness in the region. And everybody knew the
43:05
Gadarene demoniac. But nobody knew Jesus until
43:10
that moment. In the book of Mark, Jesus' disciples
43:17
are trying to cast a demon out of a boy. They
43:20
say, Lord, why couldn't we do it? He looks at
43:25
them and says, this kind comes out by prayer
43:27
and fasting. You know what Jesus was saying?
43:29
And there's theologians that agree with this.
43:31
This is not my spin. People a lot smarter than
43:34
me with doctorate's degrees. They said Jesus
43:37
was looking at them and saying, your prayer life
43:40
is not matching the level of devil you're facing.
43:44
The difficulty that's coming against you. The
43:47
persecution that's this way. Your prayer life
43:51
is not meeting what Satan is bringing. Think
43:56
about that for a minute. You have the Holy Spirit
43:58
inside of you, and you can't match the devil?
44:02
Is God weak? No. But we don't do our job in stewarding
44:10
that in the place of prayer. How many of you
44:14
guys have ever heard of the Argentine revival?
44:17
A few of you. Sweet. You three are really Pentecostal.
44:21
I want you to know that. Every time I mention
44:24
something, I told my wife, I'm trying to bring
44:26
different stories that nobody's heard of, and
44:28
you guys got every one of them. So the Argentine
44:33
revival is attributed to a man named Edward Miller.
44:38
Where he came and he was a missionary for 20
44:40
years. And do you know what a big church was
44:42
considered in Argentine? Like they thought if
44:45
you had a church of this size, you were successful.
44:48
This was the mega church of their day in their
44:50
country. You did a great job. They're going to
44:52
write you down in a book and say copy that guy.
44:55
And that's only if you had a church of eight
44:57
people. Because of how ineffective. The church
45:02
was. Edward Miller is like, bro, this is not
45:06
working. He's tired. He's worn out. He's considering
45:10
quitting the ministry. He'd heard about what
45:14
happened under Amy Simple McPherson's ministry
45:16
because his father followed her ministry, was
45:18
a part of it for a little bit. In some way, I
45:21
think he served or he just went to the meetings.
45:25
And so what he does is he begins to fast and
45:28
pray eight hours a day. After about six months
45:34
of this, Edward Miller wants to quit. He decides
45:36
to take it up another notch, keep fasting. And
45:39
now they say, we're going to host meetings here.
45:41
And there's three women at his house. And they're
45:45
worshiping and all of this. And nothing happens
45:49
until one night the Spirit suddenly falls and
45:53
all three women are baptized in the Holy Spirit.
45:55
It's a pretty wild event. Some onlookers see
45:57
it. It's like, what is going on over there? His
45:59
church doubles in size from three to six. And
46:04
in a place where eight people is effective, the
46:07
standard three to six overnight is legendary.
46:10
You just doubled your congregation. Over the
46:15
next month, so many people heard about what was
46:18
happening that they had to build a church. And
46:23
they began to ask Edward Miller to go around
46:25
city after city after city. And he goes and...
46:29
Not just a few, but hundreds of people are getting
46:32
saved and giving their life to Christ. And now,
46:34
in South America, in the Argentine area, the
46:39
assemblies of God will look at missionaries who
46:41
say they feel called to go there and they'll
46:42
say, no. We're not sending missionaries to a
46:46
nation that's reached. You know where they will
46:50
send missionaries? Here. What's your prayer life
46:59
look like? I'm not saying you got to be the guy
47:04
at a pulpit. I'm not saying you got to be the
47:05
person at the street corner preaching to everybody.
47:07
What's your prayer life look like? Are you asking
47:12
God to use you? Do you pray? Do you know him?
47:17
Like truly, do you know him? Jesus looked at
47:20
his disciples and said, no longer do I call you
47:23
servants, I call you friends. Being a friend
47:27
of God is where effectiveness comes. Being a
47:31
servant is where a yoke of bondage comes from.
47:35
Here's the last story I'll tell you, and I'll
47:37
move on. How many of you guys know about what's
47:41
going on in North Georgia right now? Have you
47:42
three raised your hands? Do you know about the
47:46
North Georgia revival? He does? Dang it. It's
47:51
okay, it's okay. We'll tell the story anyway.
47:54
Pastor Todd Smith was a Southern Baptist who
47:56
didn't believe that God did anything nowadays.
47:59
He accidentally got baptized with the Holy Spirit.
48:01
You know, they fired him, gave him the left foot
48:03
of fellowship. You know how that goes. He goes
48:05
and builds a non -denominational church plant
48:07
in Dawsonville, Georgia, a city of 5 ,000 people.
48:11
You know, your odds of getting more than 50 people
48:13
are very, very slim. But now at the North Georgia
48:19
Revival, the city has grown to 2 ,000 more members.
48:23
They'll have more people at that church on a
48:25
Sunday night than they'll have in the entire
48:27
city's population any other day of the week.
48:32
Here's what Todd Smith did. He repented. He sat
48:38
down and realized that he was doing a lot better
48:40
job teaching people how to plant a church and
48:42
trying to keep his people happy than he was at
48:44
trying to keep God happy. At trying to be a host
48:48
of the presence. So Todd Smith realizes that
48:53
One day while he's in the darkness of a dry ministry
48:56
life, he accidentally bumps into God. And he
49:00
says, oh, man, you were here with me. I didn't
49:06
even realize that. I'm serious. I've talked to
49:10
the guy. He's in ministry, what they consider
49:13
successful. He's teaching people how to plant
49:15
churches. He's literally making $200 ,000 a year.
49:18
Teaching people how to plant churches and grow
49:20
them effectively and quickly. And his model works.
49:22
It's successful. And he says, I realize that
49:25
I forgot about who God was. So he begins teaching
49:32
his people. Here's what we're going to do. We're
49:34
going to come into the sanctuary one hour a week.
49:38
And we're going to pray. And we're not going
49:39
to ask God to do anything. But we're going to
49:43
say, Lord, I seek your face. Lord, I want to
49:47
see your glory, your tangible presence. And Lord,
49:50
if there's anything in me that offends you, reveal
49:54
it to me that I may remove it. If you don't know
49:58
where to start in prayer, start there. Put some
50:04
worship music on, some soft music on, or sit
50:07
in silence and begin to ask God those three questions
50:09
and just wait for an hour. You'll be surprised
50:14
what pops up. God might say the way that you
50:17
talk to your spouse offends Him. He might say
50:21
the way you treat your neighbor offends Him.
50:23
He might say that you need to go to a group of
50:25
people and ask them to forgive you because you've
50:28
wounded them. He might say that you need to serve
50:33
a little bit more in the church. He might say
50:38
that you need to pray a little more for the needs
50:41
of the community. But the thing that I'll promise
50:45
you is, is for those who seek Him, they'll always
50:47
find Him. That's God's words Himself. He says
50:51
that alone. To the proud one I resist, but the
50:53
humble one, that one's going to find me. The
50:55
one who really seeks me is going to find me.
50:58
And I think part of the problem is that we haven't
51:00
really sought Him. And so here's the question.
51:06
What do you need to have an effective prayer
51:08
life? And I'm closing. Some of you guys are like,
51:11
this guy's going on forever. I'm closing. The
51:17
first thing you need to have an effective prayer
51:19
life, if you want to write this down in all caps,
51:21
you need to be right with God. God doesn't need
51:29
to have something in your life that offends Him.
51:35
God doesn't need to look at you and see that
51:37
you say you're following Him and you're sleeping
51:39
with your girlfriend or your boyfriend. God doesn't
51:42
need to look at your life and hear you say that
51:44
you follow Him. I'm just using extreme examples
51:48
right now for the fun of it, but you go to the
51:49
church of Satan and give them an offering and
51:52
you decide to just join them for worship. That's
51:54
not going to work. And we look at the extreme
51:57
examples and say, of course, if I'm having sex
51:59
with somebody outside of marriage or worshiping
52:01
Satan, God isn't going to forgive me. But let
52:03
me tell you something, friend. Even down to the
52:05
things you think in your heart, if you look at
52:07
a woman with lust, you've committed adultery
52:09
with her. According to Jesus, if you hate your
52:13
brother, you've murdered them in your heart.
52:16
According to Jesus, it's not just the things
52:18
you do outwardly, it's what's in here. Because
52:20
out of... everything that happens in life. Out
52:23
of everything that you do, it flows from this
52:25
place. It's a corruption that goes down to the
52:30
very soul. You've got to be right with God. Listen,
52:38
there's a day coming when you and I are going
52:40
to stand before the judge of all. And we're going
52:45
to be alone. You don't get to lean on Your husband.
52:53
I don't get to say, hey, Sidney, do you want
52:55
to come stand before Jesus with me and tell Him
52:57
to have a little bit of mercy? I mean, He might
52:59
listen to her more than me. But I don't get to
53:03
do that. I don't get to sit here and say, Mom,
53:05
Dad, tell Jesus about how great I was. I don't
53:08
get to say, hey, look at all this money I donated.
53:11
Look at all these good things I did. In Matthew
53:13
7, people come to Jesus and they say, have we
53:17
not healed the sick in Your name? Have we not
53:20
casted out demons? Have we not prophesied? Have
53:22
we not done the great mighty works of God? And
53:25
Jesus says, but you didn't know Me. Depart from
53:27
Me, you workers of lawlessness. It wasn't just
53:30
that they didn't know Him. It was that they worked
53:34
in iniquity. They lived in sin. They lived in
53:39
a way that offended Him. And listen, this is
53:41
so important because Jesus Christ is not just
53:44
a normal person. He's the very Son of God Himself.
53:48
And He did not have to come and die on a cross
53:52
for you and me. God gave me life. He gave me
53:58
breath in my lungs. He gave me an earth. He gave
54:01
me opportunity. And I chose, instead of stewarding
54:05
that well, to spit in His face and say, I don't
54:08
care what you want. I'm going to live as I do.
54:13
He made me good. He made Adam and Eve good. And
54:17
we decided to corrupt the goodness that He made
54:20
in us. And He didn't have to redeem us. This
54:27
is typically when people are like, whoa, this
54:29
guy's crazy. He could have left us in our mess.
54:37
And we always want to talk about what somebody
54:39
deserves. You want to get what you deserve? Go
54:41
to hell. That's what we deserve. I deserve to
54:45
go to hell for my sins. Every one of us do because
54:51
we've offended a holy God. But Jesus came because
54:55
He loves us so much that He said, listen, I'm
54:59
going to take your place. You and I were bound
55:04
by three things. We were bound by sin. There's
55:07
nothing we could do to overcome it. We were bound
55:09
by the devil. There's nothing we could do to
55:11
defeat him. And we were bound by death. Death
55:13
will come for us all. But God did not have to
55:16
experience any of those things. And when Jesus
55:18
came as a man, He overcame sin on our behalf.
55:22
By defeating the devil in the wilderness, he
55:24
overcame Satan by casting out demons and showing
55:27
how weak he was. And he overcame death by taking
55:30
it on and coming back from the grave. And this
55:33
is what Jesus did. He looked at you and I and
55:35
said, I know you're bound. I know you're in a
55:39
prison of your own making. But he said, I defeated
55:45
the guards and I unlocked the door. And you got
55:49
two choices. You can stay in the door until it
55:53
shuts. Or you can walk out of the open door and
55:59
follow me. He died on our behalf to restore us
56:04
to right relationship with God and to free us.
56:10
Now I want you to imagine something with me.
56:12
Imagine that you give everything within yourself
56:14
for somebody. And they look at you and they trample
56:19
on your offering. Imagine that you're the father
56:24
and you give your son or your daughter. I couldn't
56:29
give my daughter for people. Jesus is so much
56:32
more loving than me because I would have been
56:34
like, I'm not doing it. But the father gave his
56:40
son on behalf of all of us to open a door back
56:46
to himself. And sometimes we think that we can
56:50
trample on the blood of Christ. That we can lift
56:55
up hands in church. We can say the right words.
56:58
We can read our Bible. But we can turn around
57:00
and trample on His sacrifice and we're good.
57:06
Every head bowed, every eye closed for a second.
57:16
I want you to take a moment. Are you right with
57:20
God? Listen, when I became a Christian man, I
57:31
couldn't go party anymore. My friends would invite
57:35
me to a party and I would feel convicted if I
57:37
even thought about it and I had to walk away
57:39
from it. I had to say no more. When I got saved,
57:46
Jesus did something in me. Are you still living
57:48
in sin? Are you right with God? If you're not
57:54
right with God, He's not going to hear us when
57:56
we approach Him. We don't get the open door of
57:59
His presence. Here's my question. If you're not
58:04
sure if you would die today and you'd go to heaven
58:06
or hell, if you've got something in your life
58:08
that you know is separating you from God, Or
58:12
if you feel a holy conviction right now, like
58:14
you know you need to get right with him, I want
58:16
you to slip up your hand. Every head's bowed,
58:19
every eye's closed. I see that hand. God bless
58:21
you. God bless you. God bless you. Come on. God
58:26
bless you. God bless you. Some of you right now,
58:31
you feel a presence on you. And you know what
58:35
that is? That's this. That's Jesus Christ knocking
58:42
on the door of your heart. You know, sometimes
58:46
we hear a knock on the door and we're annoyed
58:49
and we don't want to deal with it because we've
58:50
got other things going on. Sometimes we think
58:53
that's just a worthless deal. You know, when
58:54
I lived in Searcy, I had Mormons knocking on
58:56
the door sometimes. And we were like, don't open
58:58
the door. A delivery man comes by. I don't want
59:01
to deal with him. He's not important right now.
59:03
And for some of you right now, Jesus is... knocking
59:07
on the door of your heart and you're treating
59:09
Him like a delivery man, like a nuisance. I want
59:12
you to hear me today. Hebrews says that today
59:15
is the day of salvation. Do not harden your heart.
59:18
If you're in this room and you're not right with
59:21
God, you don't know if you were to die today
59:24
if you'd go to heaven or hell. I want you to
59:25
slip up your hand. Now's the day. Now's the time.
59:32
Pastor, I don't know if you want to come up and
59:34
play music or have them play a track in the back.
59:37
Just a few more seconds. If that's you, slip
59:42
up your hand. Now here's what we're going to
59:54
do. Everything in Christianity is public. When
59:59
you decide to give your life to Christ, it's
1:00:01
not something that you do in a private room.
1:00:03
It's something you do before the body of Christ
1:00:05
and nobody judges us. If somebody judges us,
1:00:09
then they need to come up here and be right beside
1:00:10
you. I don't care who you are. I don't care what
1:00:13
everybody thinks about you. If you slipped up
1:00:15
your hand and you were serious about giving your
1:00:16
life to Christ, I want you to stand. Stand. Come
1:00:25
on. Come on. God bless you. God bless you. Come
1:00:38
up here. Come on. I want to pray with you. I
1:00:44
want to pray with you. The second thing you need
1:00:51
for God to have an effective prayer life is persistence.
1:00:56
Some of you in this room, you pray maybe five
1:00:59
minutes a day, and that's a great starting place,
1:01:01
but at some point we've got to move a little
1:01:02
bit further. If I spent three seconds talking
1:01:05
to my wife every day, we wouldn't have a good
1:01:07
relationship. How many of you think you'd have
1:01:10
a strong marriage if you spent five minutes talking
1:01:12
to your spouse and nothing else? Sometimes the
1:01:16
reason why we feel like our prayer life isn't
1:01:19
working is because God's saying, I'm not answering
1:01:21
so that you'll come closer to me. If you're in
1:01:25
this room today and you feel convicted that you
1:01:27
need to take your prayer life just a little bit
1:01:29
further, I'm not saying eight hours a day. I'm
1:01:31
not saying fast seven weeks out of the year.
1:01:33
I'm saying maybe you spend 10 minutes with God
1:01:36
and you need to start spending 20 minutes. Maybe
1:01:40
you spend 30 minutes with him and you need to
1:01:42
start giving him a little bit more time. You
1:01:43
feel a conviction on your life to give more time
1:01:46
to him. If that's you, I want you to come up
1:01:47
here too. I want you to come up here too. And
1:01:52
for those of you up here who are here to give
1:01:54
your life to Christ, it's very simple. He died
1:01:57
for you and he asks you to die for him. Now he'll
1:02:02
be here, he'll hold your hand, he'll walk you
1:02:04
through life, he'll set you free from things,
1:02:06
but you gotta have something in you that says,
1:02:09
I'm not gonna quit. Are you ready to do that?
1:02:15
Are you ready to do that? Everybody in the church,
1:02:21
join me in this prayer, and then we're just going
1:02:23
to have a Holy Spirit moment, okay? Say, dear
1:02:28
Jesus. Come on, come on, we can do better than
1:02:32
that. I want us to pray out loud. Say, dear Jesus.
1:02:36
Beautiful. I believe you are the Son of God.
1:02:43
I believe you died on a cross for my sins. And
1:02:51
Lord, right now, I ask you to forgive me, to
1:02:57
cleanse me, and to help me follow you all my
1:03:03
days. Amen. If you guys really mean that, you
1:03:10
believe that, in this moment, I'm going to pray
1:03:12
for you, and I believe God's going to touch you.
1:03:15
I believe, I'm not saying you're going to fall
1:03:17
on the floor and start laughing, but I believe
1:03:19
that something's going to happen in you that's
1:03:20
going to change you from this moment on.