Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #261 It's Harvest Time: Preparing for the Coming Great Awakening

Transcript

#261 It's Harvest Time: Preparing for the Coming Great Awakening · The OneCry Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker0: There was a cost. We say, well, I don't want to be like Paul.
• 0:06
  Speaker0: Well, there's a cost of
• 0:10
  Speaker0: giving your life unreservedly and saying— and,
• 0:14
  Speaker0: and this is what God longs for— I give you control.
• 0:19
  Speaker0: I let you lead my life. You can take me wherever
• 0:22
  Speaker0: you want to go because I only have a brief life and
• 0:27
  Speaker0: I'm here for one purpose, and that's to bring glory to God.
• 0:32
  Speaker0: By telling people about His Son, the Lord Jesus,
• 0:35
  Speaker0: who is worthy of our worship.
• 0:39
  Speaker0: Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual
• 0:44
  Speaker0: awakening. The goal: accelerating the movement of God through sharing
• 0:48
  Speaker0: revival truth, stories, and reports.
• 0:54
  Speaker1: Well, I'm Bill Elif, and it's so thrilling to come to you today.
• 0:58
  Speaker1: Every— Every one of these podcasts. We're so
• 1:02
  Speaker1: excited to just be the instruments to put
• 1:07
  Speaker1: it in your hands, and we pray that it's a real help to you.
• 1:11
  Speaker1: For the last several weeks, we've been listening to a series of messages from
• 1:16
  Speaker1: an Awaken conference at the Summit Church in
• 1:20
  Speaker1: Little Rock, Arkansas, where I've served for many years. I was
• 1:24
  Speaker1: a founding pastor of that church. And the final one
• 1:29
  Speaker1: of these messages is by an old guy
• 1:33
  Speaker1: that looks very similar to me.
• 1:37
  Speaker1: I have a deep burden on my heart right now that
• 1:41
  Speaker1: we are entering a series of awakening
• 1:45
  Speaker1: and we may not be ready. And so
• 1:50
  Speaker1: today in this message, We're going to talk about
• 1:54
  Speaker1: what you do in a spiritual awakening,
• 1:58
  Speaker1: how you prepare for that, how you cooperate with God.
• 2:02
  Speaker1: You know, during the Jesus Movement that I was a part of in the 1970s,
• 2:06
  Speaker1: there were a lot of churches that weren't ready for the activity
• 2:10
  Speaker1: of God, and therefore they made some wrong choices and
• 2:14
  Speaker1: wrong decisions, and the wind of the Spirit passed them by.
• 2:19
  Speaker1: Well, I don't want that to happen to me, do you?
• 2:23
  Speaker1: And maybe this message today is meant for you to equip
• 2:27
  Speaker1: you to be right in the middle of
• 2:31
  Speaker1: God's activity. So for the next few minutes,
• 2:34
  Speaker1: just get you a cup of coffee and listen carefully to what
• 2:38
  Speaker1: God may be saying to your soul. What to do in
• 2:42
  Speaker1: a spiritual awakening.
• 2:43
  Speaker0: About I
• 2:50
  Speaker0: don't know, 5 or 6 months ago,
• 2:54
  Speaker0: right here in this room, we were having
• 2:57
  Speaker0: our monthly day
• 3:02
  Speaker0: of prayer with our staff from all of our
• 3:05
  Speaker0: churches, which is so
• 3:09
  Speaker0: wonderful. And Jonathan Bull,
• 3:12
  Speaker0: our— not Jonathan Bull, Jonathan Bergen.
• 3:14
  Speaker1: Jonathan Bergen.
• 3:16
  Speaker0: We got bulls and Bergens and you name it, we got it.
• 3:20
  Speaker0: Jonathan Bergen, who's our lead pastor in Conway, was leading
• 3:25
  Speaker0: that day. And he said— he
• 3:28
  Speaker0: began this way. He said, do you know what my favorite season
• 3:32
  Speaker0: of the year is? And I thought he was going to
• 3:36
  Speaker0: say, well, you know, winter, autumn. He said, duck season.
• 3:39
  Speaker1: Duck season.
• 3:41
  Speaker0: Doesn't surprise me. And he said, let me explain that. He said,
• 3:45
  Speaker0: when I was a little boy, I loved duck season. I couldn't wait
• 3:49
  Speaker0: for duck season. He said, now, there was a reason for that.
• 3:53
  Speaker0: He said, my mother had had
• 3:58
  Speaker0: 6 different husbands,
• 4:03
  Speaker0: and some were good, some were not good.
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  Speaker0: And I was just in that, and I
• 4:11
  Speaker0: rarely saw my biological father, but he
• 4:15
  Speaker0: said, when duck season came,
• 4:20
  Speaker0: my father would come and he would take me hunting.
• 4:25
  Speaker0: And he said, it was just— you can imagine.
• 4:33
  Speaker0: I saw my father. And he
• 4:38
  Speaker0: said, you know, I was just a kid, and they lived in Jonesboro. He said,
• 4:43
  Speaker0: I didn't know when duck season was except
• 4:47
  Speaker0: for one thing. He said, Jonesboro is kind of up on a little bit of
• 4:51
  Speaker0: a rise, and it's surrounded, as many of you know, by rice fields.
• 4:55
  Speaker0: And he said, the way I knew that duck season
• 4:59
  Speaker0: was about to come was I would look and the fields
• 5:02
  Speaker0: would be ripe for harvest,
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  Speaker0: and the combines would start,
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  Speaker0: and I would see them going across those fields and harvesting
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  Speaker0: the fields. It was harvest time,
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  Speaker0: and my heart would just begin to leap because I knew
• 5:25
  Speaker0: that when harvest time came.
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  Speaker0: I was about to see my father.
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  Speaker0: And then he looked at us that morning and
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  Speaker0: he said with a word
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  Speaker0: from the Lord, I think,
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  Speaker0: he said, it's harvest time.
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  Speaker0: It's harvest time.
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  Speaker0: It's harvest time. My heart just
• 5:58
  Speaker0: leapt within me because it
• 6:03
  Speaker0: completely resonated with my spirit what he was saying,
• 6:07
  Speaker0: because for many, many years,
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  Speaker0: 50 years to be exact,
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  Speaker0: I've been studying and praying for revival
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  Speaker0: and spiritual awakening. Every church I've ever been in, every city I've ever
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  Speaker0: lived in, across our nation. I've prayed for
• 6:27
  Speaker0: it. I've talked about it. I've written about it,
• 6:31
  Speaker0: as many of you know. And in the last
• 6:35
  Speaker0: 10 years, which always happens before a
• 6:39
  Speaker0: major spiritual awakening, there has been— really the last 15 years— there's
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  Speaker0: been a rising tide of prayer.
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  Speaker1: Amen.
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  Speaker0: Happening all across our nation in
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  Speaker0: such a way that some authorities that study
• 6:56
  Speaker0: this have said there are more people praying in America right now than
• 7:00
  Speaker0: any time in American history.
• 7:04
  Speaker0: And God responds to prayer. In fact,
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  Speaker0: He's the one who initiates prayer and
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  Speaker0: calls us back to Amen. We think it's us,
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  Speaker0: but we would never do that if it weren't for His intervention.
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  Speaker0: And as many of you know, in our nation, we're celebrating
• 7:25
  Speaker0: our 250th anniversary now,
• 7:29
  Speaker0: but in our nation, 5 times every
• 7:33
  Speaker0: 30 to 60 years, approximately on
• 7:37
  Speaker0: average about every 40 years, Amen. God has sent
• 7:41
  Speaker0: us a nationwide spiritual awakening.
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  Speaker0: In those times several things happen.
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  Speaker0: God brings the Church back to Himself.
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  Speaker0: We always wander away. We always— our
• 7:59
  Speaker0: love grows cold. Sin begins to abound.
• 8:04
  Speaker0: And God loves His Bride, and He just He just won't allow
• 8:07
  Speaker0: that, and so He calls us back to Himself.
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  Speaker0: Sometimes He uses judgment to bring us to the end of Himself.
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  Speaker0: And then the church begins to see the rise of
• 8:20
  Speaker0: evil in the world, and their heart
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  Speaker0: begins to be burdened, and the church begins
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  Speaker0: to repent, and the church begins to cry out, and the church begins
• 8:31
  Speaker0: to pray. And when that happens,
• 8:35
  Speaker0: God sends what we call revival.
• 8:38
  Speaker0: He revives. He brings the church back to life again.
• 8:44
  Speaker0: And when that happens, the church begins to do what it was always
• 8:48
  Speaker0: supposed to do, to love God and be passionately
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  Speaker0: in love with people for whom He died,
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  Speaker0: in every tongue, tribe, and nation.
• 9:01
  Speaker0: And He compels the church to
• 9:05
  Speaker0: get back to her task,
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  Speaker0: to get back to the reason why He left heaven and
• 9:13
  Speaker0: came to earth and lived and died and rose again and commissioned
• 9:17
  Speaker0: us to go make disciples of all the nations. And suddenly,
• 9:21
  Speaker0: our heart starts beating with the Lord, and then God In His
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  Speaker0: mercy, and this is again all of His mercy, God begins
• 9:29
  Speaker0: to bring, and He's done it every 40 to 50 years
• 9:33
  Speaker0: in American history, First Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening,
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  Speaker0: Prayer Revival of 1857, 1904 Revival. The last
• 9:42
  Speaker0: one was the Jesus Movement in 1969 and
• 9:45
  Speaker0: following. I was a product of the Jesus Movement. I was in
• 9:49
  Speaker0: that spiritual awakening.
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  Speaker1: Amen.
• 9:51
  Speaker0: He sends what we call an awakening.
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  Speaker0: There's a reason we use this word awake.
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  Speaker0: It's a biblical word. It's a
• 10:01
  Speaker0: great theological word. It means— it's what God does when
• 10:05
  Speaker0: He reaches down to lost people and He
• 10:08
  Speaker0: wakes them up to their lost condition and their need
• 10:13
  Speaker0: of Jesus Christ, and He opens their eyes and He saves
• 10:17
  Speaker0: them. Somebody say, Hallelujah!
• 10:19
  Speaker1: Hallelujah!
• 10:20
  Speaker0: I mean, only Jesus
• 10:21
  Speaker0: can save people, right? Church can't do it. BJ can't do
• 10:26
  Speaker0: it. I can't do it. You can't do it. Only God can save. And in
• 10:29
  Speaker0: times of nationwide revival
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  Speaker0: and spiritual awakening,
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  Speaker0: the work of God— now listen— the work of God
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  Speaker0: is dramatically accelerated.
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  Speaker0: In fact, we describe those times as the necessary
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  Speaker0: extraordinary movement of the Spirit of God
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  Speaker0: that produces extraordinary results.
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  Speaker0: In the First Great Awakening, 15% of the population of
• 11:02
  Speaker0: America came to Christ in 2 years, 15%. Do the
• 11:06
  Speaker0: math on what that would look like now. In the 1850
• 11:10
  Speaker0: Revival. I was just reading about it again this afternoon. I wish I had time
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  Speaker0: to just read the whole chapter to you about what
• 11:18
  Speaker0: happened in New York City, which in 1857
• 11:22
  Speaker0: had 800,000 people in it. You know how many
• 11:26
  Speaker0: people are in Central Arkansas? About 800,000
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  Speaker0: people. About the same size.
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  Speaker0: And some people got burdened, some Christians, and they began to start
• 11:40
  Speaker0: to pray every day at noon, first 6, then 20, then 60,
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  Speaker0: then 100, and before long in a
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  Speaker0: rapid period, 3 months,
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  Speaker0: 50,000 people were meeting in every church
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  Speaker0: and hall in New York City every single day at noon,
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  Speaker0: and revival and awakening broke out, and people began
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  Speaker0: to be saved. First dozens, then hundreds,
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  Speaker0: then thousands. And as that
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  Speaker0: began to progress and go literally all across the United
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  Speaker0: States, 10,000 people a week
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  Speaker0: were coming to faith in Christ.
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  Speaker1: Amen.
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  Speaker0: 10,000 this week. Now, see, we have trouble believing
• 12:29
  Speaker0: that. You think I'm exaggerating that because, A, I'm a preacher and Anyway,
• 12:35
  Speaker0: but it's true. I can verify that.
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  Speaker0: We have the records of that. 10,000 people this
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  Speaker0: week, 10,000 people the next week, 10,000 people the next week, and within
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  Speaker0: 2 years, 24 months, a million people had come
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  Speaker0: to faith in Jesus Christ. And God just turned
• 12:54
  Speaker0: the nation around and revived His church and awakened The
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  Speaker0: loss. And you know what a spiritual awakening
• 13:03
  Speaker0: is? It's harvest time.
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  Speaker0: It's just harvest time. It's when God has been working and doing
• 13:12
  Speaker0: all kinds of things, and He's been getting the church ready to handle
• 13:17
  Speaker0: it, and He's been getting lost people ready to receive it and to realize
• 13:20
  Speaker0: they need it, and then God begins to awaken
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  Speaker0: Lost people who need Him desperately, and most of them
• 13:28
  Speaker0: don't even know it. And God opens their eyes
• 13:31
  Speaker0: to their lost condition, that they're on their way to hell without Christ.
• 13:36
  Speaker0: And He opens their eyes to the Gospel, and He saves them.
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  Speaker0: And I want to tell you something that's wonderful and glorious,
• 13:45
  Speaker0: and many of you know this, that with all
• 13:49
  Speaker0: of my heart I believe, and I think everybody who understands this
• 13:53
  Speaker0: would see it, We are in the beginning of the next Great Awakening in
• 13:57
  Speaker0: our nation. It's happening everywhere.
• 14:00
  Speaker0: Do you know that among Gen Z, all these students
• 14:04
  Speaker0: out here, do you know that among Gen Z, church attendance
• 14:08
  Speaker0: is up 30% over the last 2 years?
• 14:11
  Speaker1: Hallelujah!
• 14:12
  Speaker0: Do you know that just in the Southern Baptist Convention alone,
• 14:16
  Speaker0: where baptisms had been declining for years,
• 14:19
  Speaker0: In the last 2 years, baptisms have risen by 10%.
• 14:23
  Speaker0: Do you know there are more Gen Z students
• 14:27
  Speaker0: and young people and young adults going to church
• 14:31
  Speaker0: now than their parents, than boomers? Just this
• 14:35
  Speaker0: mighty movement, and particularly among young men, which is an
• 14:39
  Speaker0: amazing phenomenon.
• 14:42
  Speaker0: Hundreds and thousands of college students
• 14:46
  Speaker0: are coming to Jesus Christ. I've been in these environments. I've been on these campuses.
• 14:51
  Speaker0: Seeing 9,000 people here just worshiping
• 14:55
  Speaker0: God, students, and hundreds of them coming to Jesus Christ.
• 14:58
  Speaker0: I don't need to tell you all those reports, but I want to tell you
• 15:02
  Speaker0: something, and I'm trying to make a point, and that is, what are
• 15:06
  Speaker0: we in? What's going on right now? It's harvest time.
• 15:11
  Speaker0: It's harvest time. Now, over in the Delta,
• 15:16
  Speaker0: when the rice Yes. Crop and the soybean crop is
• 15:19
  Speaker0: ready and it's harvest time, you change things.
• 15:25
  Speaker0: You do things differently. You don't sit around and
• 15:29
  Speaker0: operate the same way. I mean, there's no farmer that's— of
• 15:33
  Speaker0: course, there's not a farmer that's
• 15:37
  Speaker0: still asleep at 5 o'clock anyway, but particularly
• 15:41
  Speaker0: in harvest time, You get up early.
• 15:45
  Speaker0: You stay up late. You turn on the lights on your million-dollar
• 15:50
  Speaker0: combine, and you just keep going because,
• 15:53
  Speaker0: you see, harvest time happens for a brief
• 15:56
  Speaker0: season, and it's very intentional.
• 16:01
  Speaker0: And everything you have been doing has been working towards the
• 16:05
  Speaker0: harvest time. And people's lives and their
• 16:09
  Speaker0: food and their sustenance depend upon how
• 16:12
  Speaker0: well you do your job during harvest
• 16:16
  Speaker0: time. The Bible has things to say about
• 16:20
  Speaker0: this. It says in Proverbs, a son who
• 16:24
  Speaker0: sleeps during harvest is just shameful.
• 16:28
  Speaker0: I mean, it's just a shameful thing if you're asleep during harvest time,
• 16:33
  Speaker0: during this little brief window. So, right now is
• 16:37
  Speaker0: a harvest Amen. Time. And in these
• 16:41
  Speaker0: weeks, just so grateful for
• 16:45
  Speaker0: our elders and BJ leading us into these times
• 16:49
  Speaker0: in this study in the last, really in the last couple of months.
• 16:52
  Speaker0: Way to go, man. And it's just so beautiful where
• 16:57
  Speaker0: we are and helping us understand what's going on
• 17:00
  Speaker0: around us. And God has been convicting us
• 17:05
  Speaker0: and calling us and doing things, but I just want you to know we are
• 17:09
  Speaker0: about, I believe, to enter into a time of real harvest.
• 17:12
  Speaker0: I want to tell you something, if a harvest like we
• 17:16
  Speaker0: have had 5 different times in American history,
• 17:20
  Speaker0: and we are in the foothills of that harvest right now, that spiritual
• 17:25
  Speaker0: awakening we could call it right now, if it comes like it has
• 17:29
  Speaker0: come in the past, it will blow your mind. You won't—
• 17:33
  Speaker0: you can't imagine Amen. How God will accelerate His work.
• 17:38
  Speaker0: Now, here's the tragedy, there will be a lot of people
• 17:42
  Speaker0: who will miss the harvest. There will be a lot of churches that miss
• 17:46
  Speaker0: the harvest.
• 17:50
  Speaker0: You say, well, how could anybody? I mean, they may see it, they may read
• 17:54
  Speaker0: about it, we are already reading about it in the papers and magazines
• 17:57
  Speaker0: and on the internet. We are already reading the stories about the beginning,
• 18:01
  Speaker0: the rumblings of the spiritual harvest as this rapid
• 18:05
  Speaker0: expansion of the Gospel is happening not only in the United States, but literally
• 18:09
  Speaker0: around the world it's happening. And some people—
• 18:13
  Speaker0: we'll all read about it, we'll know something is going on, but there are a
• 18:16
  Speaker0: lot of churches and there are a lot of professing Christians who just
• 18:21
  Speaker0: won't experience. They won't be involved in the harvest.
• 18:25
  Speaker0: You see, how could you possibly Do that. Well,
• 18:29
  Speaker0: I've watched this. One of the reasons that
• 18:33
  Speaker0: you could miss the harvest is just
• 18:38
  Speaker0: control. I mean, if you
• 18:42
  Speaker0: like the way things are in your life and you like to be in control
• 18:45
  Speaker0: and you like to be in charge and you like your, you know,
• 18:49
  Speaker0: TV where it is and your internet where it is and your pet
• 18:53
  Speaker0: sins where they are and you like—
• 18:55
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 18:55
  Speaker0: Your schedule, and you like your
• 18:57
  Speaker0: money to be, you know, under your control so
• 19:00
  Speaker0: you can do— not God who gave you all that, by the
• 19:04
  Speaker0: way, and is the Lord of all the money, but you like to control all
• 19:07
  Speaker0: of that. I want to tell you something, you'll miss the awakening
• 19:12
  Speaker0: because God doesn't share His glory with
• 19:17
  Speaker0: anybody. Some people will miss it just because They
• 19:22
  Speaker0: don't like any change. And I want to tell you something,
• 19:25
  Speaker0: during a Great Awakening, there's going to be a lot of change.
• 19:29
  Speaker0: There always has been. There's new wineskins
• 19:34
  Speaker0: for the new wine that's coming, the power of the
• 19:38
  Speaker0: Holy Spirit. And when He comes, I watched
• 19:41
  Speaker0: this in the Jesus Movement. I was just a boy. I didn't know what was
• 19:44
  Speaker0: going on, but I saw it and I've reflected on it.
• 19:47
  Speaker1: Yes.
• 19:47
  Speaker0: for decades,
• 19:49
  Speaker0: God began to bring this great infusion of the
• 19:53
  Speaker0: wine of the Holy Spirit into the church. A lot of people didn't
• 19:57
  Speaker0: like that. They didn't like the music that came with it.
• 20:00
  Speaker0: They didn't like hippies, you know,
• 20:05
  Speaker0: tie-dye shirts. I mean, whatever. I'm sorry. They didn't like that
• 20:09
  Speaker0: stuff. And it changed. And somebody had come in on Sunday
• 20:13
  Speaker0: and somebody's sitting in there Pew!
• 20:18
  Speaker0: And if you don't like change, you won't like revival.
• 20:22
  Speaker0: The wind of God comes and it kind of blows everything around,
• 20:26
  Speaker0: right? Because He needs to.
• 20:30
  Speaker0: Things need to be changed and rearranged so
• 20:34
  Speaker0: that the gospel can go out in extraordinary ways,
• 20:38
  Speaker0: and some people will miss it because there's a cost to revival.
• 20:42
  Speaker1: Amen.
• 20:43
  Speaker0: I was reading this morning. I don't—
• 20:48
  Speaker0: you may be turned off by this, but I was reading this morning
• 20:52
  Speaker0: 2 Corinthians chapter 11, and I was
• 20:56
  Speaker0: just reading about Paul's life.
• 21:00
  Speaker0: And one phrase, I was telling Tim Grissom, one phrase just blew
• 21:04
  Speaker0: me away this morning. Paul said,
• 21:07
  Speaker0: 5 times I received 39
• 21:12
  Speaker0: lashes.
• 21:15
  Speaker0: 5 times. Now, just think about that.
• 21:21
  Speaker0: 3 times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned,
• 21:25
  Speaker0: Paul said, and left for dead.
• 21:29
  Speaker0: 3 nights I was shipwrecked in the open sea.
• 21:34
  Speaker0: There's a cost. We say, well, I don't want to be like Paul. Well,
• 21:38
  Speaker0: there's a cost of giving your
• 21:42
  Speaker0: life unreservedly and saying— and this
• 21:46
  Speaker0: is what God longs for— I give You control. I let
• 21:50
  Speaker0: You lead my life. You can take me wherever You want to go because
• 21:55
  Speaker0: I only have a brief life, and I'm here
• 21:58
  Speaker0: for one purpose, Yes. And that's to bring glory to
• 22:02
  Speaker0: God by telling people about His Son, the Lord
• 22:06
  Speaker0: Jesus, who is worthy of our worship and
• 22:10
  Speaker0: worthy of our service. And then we
• 22:14
  Speaker0: go on to glory, and then we have all that stuff. But I want to
• 22:17
  Speaker0: tell you something. Here,
• 22:20
  Speaker0: there's a cost. And when the wind of God begins to
• 22:24
  Speaker0: blow at The Summit Church, There will be some
• 22:28
  Speaker0: cost to that.
• 22:32
  Speaker0: But what I want to ask you tonight, and I believe the
• 22:36
  Speaker0: Lord wants to ask you, will you join
• 22:40
  Speaker0: the harvest?
• 22:45
  Speaker0: Now, I want to mention, I've just been thinking about this
• 22:49
  Speaker0: for months, and I want
• 22:52
  Speaker0: to mention I had 10 things on my list. I whittled
• 22:56
  Speaker0: it down to 5. Say, thank you, Pastor.
• 23:01
  Speaker0: I want to mention 5 things that
• 23:05
  Speaker0: we have to do when the awakening, when the
• 23:08
  Speaker0: harvest comes.
• 23:11
  Speaker1: Are you ready?
• 23:12
  Speaker0: And I'm putting these in form of a question because
• 23:17
  Speaker0: these are not statements for our edification
• 23:20
  Speaker0: or our knowledge. These are questions that the Spirit
• 23:24
  Speaker0: of God is coming and He's asking these guys on the front row,
• 23:28
  Speaker0: will you? Will you? Will you join in the harvest?
• 23:31
  Speaker0: Will you do this? Will you make this a joy in your life? He's been
• 23:35
  Speaker0: saying this for 5 weeks to us and more. Will you
• 23:40
  Speaker0: join in? Will you be revived? Will you be willing to join
• 23:43
  Speaker0: in the harvest? And adjust your life to the activity of
• 23:47
  Speaker0: God. And he's doing that because he loves us and
• 23:51
  Speaker0: he wants us to get into the very best that he has for us in
• 23:55
  Speaker0: his kingdom. But it is a question which demands
• 23:59
  Speaker0: a response. So let me just mention
• 24:03
  Speaker0: 4 or 5 things as comes out of this beautiful thing that Jesus said
• 24:07
  Speaker0: in Luke 10:2. He said, the harvest is plentiful.
• 24:12
  Speaker0: But the problem is there are few laborers. It's not a problem with
• 24:16
  Speaker0: the harvest. There are few laborers, and therefore you
• 24:19
  Speaker0: need to beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His
• 24:23
  Speaker0: harvest. So, what do we do when the harvest comes?
• 24:28
  Speaker0: Are you ready? Number 1, will you pray bigger
• 24:33
  Speaker0: prayers? Pray bigger
• 24:36
  Speaker0: prayers. I remember when Stephen Kendrick, the Kendrick
• 24:40
  Speaker0: Brothers that did all the movies, he was here one day standing
• 24:45
  Speaker0: right here preaching to us about prayer. And he preached a message on bigger
• 24:49
  Speaker0: prayers. And he said as they began making
• 24:52
  Speaker0: those movies, they began to pray.
• 24:56
  Speaker0: They knew they couldn't do it without praying. And they were praying at this level.
• 25:00
  Speaker0: And then they went to another area and they had to pray at
• 25:04
  Speaker0: this level. And then they had to pray at this level. And then they had
• 25:07
  Speaker0: to pray at this level. And then they had to pray. And he said,
• 25:09
  Speaker0: by the time we got to the 3rd or 4th movie, we were just praying
• 25:13
  Speaker0: big prayers. And what we realized was
• 25:17
  Speaker0: God was the same when we were praying little prayers.
• 25:21
  Speaker0: He was totally capable. We weren't capable in our faith.
• 25:25
  Speaker0: We just weren't there. We didn't believe God was
• 25:29
  Speaker0: big enough to do those kinds of things.
• 25:33
  Speaker0: And in times of harvest, when there's a lot to be done and
• 25:37
  Speaker0: a lot to believe God for, we need to
• 25:40
  Speaker0: pray big prayers. I had the privilege
• 25:44
  Speaker0: this week— one of my dear friends is a guy named Bob
• 25:48
  Speaker0: Bakke. He's an amazing man of God.
• 25:53
  Speaker0: And just to tell you who this guy is,
• 25:57
  Speaker0: he's been involved in the National Day of Prayer.
• 26:00
  Speaker0: He helped resurrect the Collegiate Day of Prayer, which is touching literally
• 26:05
  Speaker0: millions of lives around the world now. He was
• 26:08
  Speaker0: a man that God used when he lived in New
• 26:12
  Speaker0: York to start the Global Day of Prayer. Now, what that was is
• 26:18
  Speaker0: in a 24-hour period,
• 26:21
  Speaker0: they mobilized 200 million
• 26:25
  Speaker0: people in 220 countries to
• 26:30
  Speaker0: cry out to God for revival and a movement of God.
• 26:33
  Speaker0: That's Bob Bakke. That's who he is. And so I was interviewing on
• 26:37
  Speaker0: our One Cry podcast. You ought to go listen to it.
• 26:41
  Speaker0: It was just a few weeks ago. And I said to Bob, Bob, where did
• 26:46
  Speaker0: you get interested in awakening and revival?
• 26:50
  Speaker0: And he said, well, Bill, I was just like you. We're about the same age.
• 26:54
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 26:54
  Speaker0: He said it was during the Jesus Movement. He said,
• 26:57
  Speaker0: I had no interest in God. I was a believer, but I was just playing
• 27:00
  Speaker0: games with the Lord, just kind of piddling around, maybe like some students
• 27:05
  Speaker0: are doing, maybe like some of us adults are doing. And he said, my brother
• 27:09
  Speaker0: came home from Vietnam, and I always wanted to play
• 27:13
  Speaker0: football with my brother. And so we went to this relatively
• 27:18
  Speaker0: small Christian university. And when I got
• 27:22
  Speaker0: to that university, that university was ablaze with
• 27:26
  Speaker0: the presence of God. It was the Jesus Movement. It was awakening.
• 27:31
  Speaker0: And he said, there was all these students, and they were staying up all night,
• 27:35
  Speaker0: and they were praying, and they were talking to people about Jesus. And he said,
• 27:39
  Speaker0: it was so convicting to me that I just got caught up, and I found
• 27:42
  Speaker0: myself surrendering my life to Christ. And there were
• 27:46
  Speaker0: a group of us that started a coffee shop. We didn't have coffee shops
• 27:51
  Speaker0: back then, and they started these Christian coffee houses where
• 27:54
  Speaker0: they'd have music and a little coffee, and and and they knew they could.
• 27:57
  Speaker0: It was an environment where we could reach kids, and so he said we started
• 28:01
  Speaker0: this little coffee shop in the basement of this this building
• 28:05
  Speaker0: called Jacob's Well, and we we painted the the wall white,
• 28:09
  Speaker0: and we said when you get saved, go write your name on the wall.
• 28:12
  Speaker0: And first it was dozens, and then hundreds, and then several
• 28:16
  Speaker0: thousand on that wall. Just that's
• 28:19
  Speaker0: what God was doing. And he said, we decided at the coffee house that we
• 28:23
  Speaker0: wanted to have pizza. And so we didn't
• 28:27
  Speaker0: have a kitchen, but I was kind of a construction guy.
• 28:31
  Speaker0: So I saw this way we could put a little kitchen over here.
• 28:35
  Speaker0: And so we shut it down for a few weeks.
• 28:38
  Speaker0: And we announced that on this Friday night, We're going to reopen,
• 28:42
  Speaker0: big night. We're going to have pizza. And I ordered a
• 28:46
  Speaker0: commercial oven, and the guy that
• 28:50
  Speaker0: was supposed to get it didn't get it. And then I looked in our bank
• 28:54
  Speaker0: account, and I realized it wouldn't have mattered. We only had $60 anyway.
• 28:59
  Speaker0: And so it was Thursday night, and we were supposed to
• 29:03
  Speaker0: open on Friday night, and we didn't have an
• 29:06
  Speaker0: oven. No oven, no pizza.
• 29:08
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 29:09
  Speaker0: And he said,
• 29:10
  Speaker0: I was just so disappointed, and I, I got on
• 29:14
  Speaker0: my face and I just cried out to God. And he said, God, I,
• 29:17
  Speaker0: I don't know how this stuff works. I'm new at this, but Father,
• 29:20
  Speaker0: you're God. Surely you can provide a pizza
• 29:24
  Speaker0: oven. And about that time, a 12-year-old
• 29:27
  Speaker0: girl came in their coffee house and she said, I was saved last night and
• 29:32
  Speaker0: I want to be baptized. And they had a deal there.
• 29:33
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 29:34
  Speaker0: That they had
• 29:34
  Speaker0: decided, if you get saved and you come ask
• 29:38
  Speaker0: us, we'll go down to the lake and we'll baptize you. And a pastor,
• 29:42
  Speaker0: local pastor would help them. And then he thought— she said, I want to be
• 29:45
  Speaker0: baptized. And then Bob thought, oh great, I don't have an oven and
• 29:49
  Speaker0: now I got to get wet. And so he said, okay,
• 29:52
  Speaker0: but this is— I understand. So he goes down to the lake
• 29:56
  Speaker0: and they baptize this gal. It was kind of out in the woods.
• 30:00
  Speaker0: And he's been praying and they're walking back. And he
• 30:04
  Speaker0: said, literally, I'm walking back through the woods and over in
• 30:07
  Speaker0: the woods there's kind of this beam of light. And he said,
• 30:11
  Speaker0: there is a double South Bend commercial
• 30:16
  Speaker0: oven sitting in the, in the woods.
• 30:20
  Speaker0: And we, we couldn't believe it. And we started asking around and there was
• 30:24
  Speaker0: a little camp and they had had this commercial oven. They had
• 30:27
  Speaker0: never used it. It was taking up space.
• 30:30
  Speaker0: That morning they had decided to dump it in
• 30:34
  Speaker0: the forest. By that afternoon, Thursday afternoon,
• 30:38
  Speaker0: they got the pizza oven on a truck. They're going down to the coffee house.
• 30:42
  Speaker0: They couldn't get it through the front door. They realized they could
• 30:46
  Speaker0: go through the back door, down the stairs if they turned it on their side
• 30:50
  Speaker0: and jumped on it. And they jumped it all the way And
• 30:54
  Speaker0: by Friday night, they're feeding pizza to kids
• 30:58
  Speaker0: and seeing them come to Christ. He said, it was the first time
• 31:01
  Speaker0: I saw that if you ask God something,
• 31:06
  Speaker0: he'll answer you. And he said, it so stirred up my faith
• 31:11
  Speaker0: that I don't know why I had this idea, but I had this
• 31:14
  Speaker0: idea that I wanted to call the whole school, all the student body,
• 31:18
  Speaker0: to pray for our nation. Our nation was in a mess.
• 31:22
  Speaker0: I went to the president of the university. I said, could I have the
• 31:26
  Speaker0: gym? And could we take a night and spend all
• 31:31
  Speaker0: night long praying, guys and gals in the same gym?
• 31:34
  Speaker0: He wasn't very excited about that. He said, look, we'll be careful and we'll put
• 31:38
  Speaker0: the guys over here. And every time we pray through the night, we'll get up
• 31:42
  Speaker0: and light a candle. And so he said he agreed. We let the whole school
• 31:45
  Speaker0: know that we were having this night of prayer. And he said, 10 minutes before
• 31:49
  Speaker0: the meeting, I walked in the gym and there were 10 people. He said,
• 31:53
  Speaker0: I was so disappointed. I thought, man, what kind of a failure
• 31:57
  Speaker0: am I that I can't even get 10 people? And I was
• 32:00
  Speaker0: so broken because I was so burdened about— I felt God had told
• 32:04
  Speaker0: me to do this. I'd asked God to do this. So I went in the
• 32:08
  Speaker0: back room. And he said, I literally got on my face and I said,
• 32:11
  Speaker0: oh God, I don't know what you're doing, but whatever
• 32:14
  Speaker0: you do with this night, It's yours. Please bring
• 32:18
  Speaker0: the people and please meet with us. And he walked
• 32:23
  Speaker0: out 10 minutes later, and there were 350 students sitting on
• 32:27
  Speaker0: the floor. All night long they cried out to God.
• 32:31
  Speaker0: God began to accelerate the work. And he said, Bill,
• 32:34
  Speaker0: he said, it was the first 2 tangible
• 32:38
  Speaker0: times in my life I realized God
• 32:41
  Speaker0: answers big Prayers.
• 32:45
  Speaker0: And how could I possibly know that God was
• 32:49
  Speaker0: equipping me to later lead
• 32:53
  Speaker0: some of the largest movements of prayer in
• 32:57
  Speaker0: world history? Big prayers.
• 33:03
  Speaker0: What if everybody in this room tonight said,
• 33:06
  Speaker0: you know what, we're not, we're not There's not 10,000
• 33:11
  Speaker0: people here. But our God is a big God.
• 33:16
  Speaker0: You say, well, how do I join in and pray
• 33:19
  Speaker0: big prayers? I'll tell you, this is very simple. You ask God.
• 33:24
  Speaker0: The Bible says in Ephesians 6, pray at all times and all means
• 33:29
  Speaker0: by the Spirit. That means you go to the Lord and say,
• 33:32
  Speaker0: Holy Spirit, show me what I'm to pray for.
• 33:36
  Speaker0: Initiate prayers in heaven in my heart, and then
• 33:40
  Speaker0: you get in the loop of what God is doing, and we see
• 33:44
  Speaker0: the magnitude of God. In times of awakening,
• 33:48
  Speaker0: will you pray big prayers?
• 33:52
  Speaker0: Will you say, Lord, I don't know how this works, just like Bob Bakke,
• 33:57
  Speaker0: but Lord, we need people, and we need money, and we need resources,
• 34:01
  Speaker0: and we need the movement of God, and we need to see—
• 34:03
  Speaker1: Amen.
• 34:03
  Speaker0: Impossible kind
• 34:05
  Speaker0: of people get saved. Lord, would You do that? Would you join
• 34:09
  Speaker0: with God in being a big intercessor
• 34:14
  Speaker0: for the kingdom? That's what happens during times of awakening.
• 34:18
  Speaker0: Secondly, number 2, deal with
• 34:23
  Speaker0: all known sin.
• 34:28
  Speaker0: Now, we've talked about this I'm just recapping what we've been saying for
• 34:33
  Speaker0: weeks. Revival is when God in
• 34:37
  Speaker0: His love and grace cleans us up,
• 34:40
  Speaker0: when God comes to us in His mercy and He says, look, you've got this
• 34:43
  Speaker0: thing that's hurting you. It's hurting your family. It's hurting
• 34:48
  Speaker0: your kids. It's hurting your friends,
• 34:51
  Speaker0: because sin always brings death. It always brings
• 34:55
  Speaker0: death. And I'm here. I died on the cross to
• 34:59
  Speaker0: deliver you from your sin, but you've got to cooperate.
• 35:03
  Speaker0: And so, the Lord comes to us and He speaks to us about
• 35:07
  Speaker0: our sin, and He has a very clear way to deal with it. We need
• 35:11
  Speaker0: to just confess our sin. That means to own up
• 35:15
  Speaker0: to it. That means to get honest about it. That means to quit lying about
• 35:19
  Speaker0: it. He who covers his sin, Proverbs 28,
• 35:22
  Speaker0: 13, will never prosper.
• 35:25
  Speaker0: You covering your sin? I mean, you look nice
• 35:29
  Speaker0: on the outside, but you got stuff on the inside, and you know it,
• 35:33
  Speaker0: and God knows it, and he loves you,
• 35:36
  Speaker0: and he's speaking. And every week you come, every Wednesday night,
• 35:39
  Speaker0: and God has been just kind of pressing on your soul about
• 35:43
  Speaker0: that, and it, it's uncomfortable.
• 35:46
  Speaker1: Amen.
• 35:46
  Speaker0: It's meant to
• 35:48
  Speaker0: be uncomfortable. So God would bring you to the end of yourself
• 35:51
  Speaker0: and get you honest so that you would just deal with it,
• 35:55
  Speaker0: confess and forsake your sin.
• 35:59
  Speaker0: And God wants to bring us to repentance. Now we don't like
• 36:02
  Speaker0: that word. We, we, we think it's a terrible word, but repentance is one of
• 36:06
  Speaker0: the most wonderful words in the Bible.
• 36:09
  Speaker0: To repent means a change of mind. It means
• 36:14
  Speaker0: I was thinking What I was doing was okay.
• 36:18
  Speaker0: Or at least I could get by with it. Maybe I knew it was not
• 36:21
  Speaker0: right, but I could get by. It wouldn't hurt me. It wouldn't hurt
• 36:24
  Speaker0: others. It's just in private. It's by myself. Or it's an attitude
• 36:28
  Speaker0: I have. I know it's wrong, but I just don't— I can't— I don't want
• 36:31
  Speaker0: to mess with it. I don't want to deal with it. I was thinking it
• 36:33
  Speaker0: was okay. And suddenly, God's Spirit speaks to me, and his word speaks
• 36:38
  Speaker0: to me, and he says, Bill, you need to change.
• 36:41
  Speaker1: Amen.
• 36:42
  Speaker0: I'll give you the grace. I'm a deliverer. I do
• 36:46
  Speaker0: this for a living, and, and I can
• 36:49
  Speaker0: change you, but you have to get honest and confess
• 36:54
  Speaker0: your sin. Some of you tonight need to just come to this altar
• 36:58
  Speaker0: and confess your sin. You need to come to
• 37:02
  Speaker0: somebody and just open up about some issue in your
• 37:06
  Speaker0: life. You need to go deal with your sins. Some of you have people
• 37:10
  Speaker0: that you have not forgiven, and you're holding that unforgiveness
• 37:15
  Speaker0: in your heart, and you're blaming them. You know,
• 37:18
  Speaker0: when God begins to convict you about sin,
• 37:23
  Speaker0: he has a reason. He wants to bring change to your heart and your
• 37:27
  Speaker0: life. And so he speaks to you. You have
• 37:30
  Speaker0: 3 options. We all have 3 options. Number one, you can
• 37:34
  Speaker0: just ignore him. You just blow him off. You just say, it's fine,
• 37:37
  Speaker0: but I'm not going to do anything about that. Number 2, and this— we
• 37:41
  Speaker0: love this option— you can blame other people. Well, my wife,
• 37:45
  Speaker0: my husband, if he would just stop. My parents,
• 37:49
  Speaker0: my boyfriend. I mean, we just blame other people,
• 37:53
  Speaker0: and we don't take personal responsibility for what we're responsible
• 37:57
  Speaker0: for. Or we can agree with God And
• 38:01
  Speaker0: adjust by His grace. You can say, oh Lord, I didn't
• 38:05
  Speaker0: realize. I see it now, so I confess
• 38:10
  Speaker0: it. I ask You to forgive me and cleanse me from all unrighteousness.
• 38:14
  Speaker0: And Lord, help me change by Your grace.
• 38:18
  Speaker0: You know, they asked Norman Grubb,
• 38:22
  Speaker0: the missionary who was in a 20-year revival in Rwanda,
• 38:25
  Speaker0: they said, how in the world did you See that nationwide
• 38:30
  Speaker0: revival extend? And his answer was very simple.
• 38:33
  Speaker0: We kept the roof off and the walls down.
• 38:39
  Speaker0: Roof off, nothing between us and God,
• 38:43
  Speaker0: and the walls down, nothing between us and
• 38:47
  Speaker0: anybody else. If we had the slightest misunderstanding,
• 38:51
  Speaker0: problem, something we're holding in our heart against somebody, We immediately
• 38:54
  Speaker0: cleared our conscience, got it right with God, and got it right
• 38:58
  Speaker0: with man. Because you see, revival,
• 39:02
  Speaker0: that is the precursor to spiritual awakening,
• 39:05
  Speaker0: depends on us having pure hands
• 39:08
  Speaker0: and a clean heart that B.J. read about.
• 39:13
  Speaker0: So we— I mean, we know this,
• 39:17
  Speaker0: some at church. Most of us know this.
• 39:19
  Speaker1: Yes.
• 39:21
  Speaker0: But here's a question. Will you tonight?
• 39:28
  Speaker0: Will you?
• 39:30
  Speaker0: Will you deal with all known sin,
• 39:34
  Speaker0: and will you keep dealing with it so that God can keep you
• 39:38
  Speaker0: growing into the likeness of Christ?
• 39:41
  Speaker1: Amen.
• 39:42
  Speaker0: Will you pray big prayers? Will you deal with all known Sin.
• 39:48
  Speaker0: And listen to this, will you resist the enemy?
• 39:53
  Speaker0: You say, Bill, what are you talking about? The Bible very clearly says,
• 39:56
  Speaker0: resist the devil, he will flee from you, right? Greater is he that's in you
• 40:00
  Speaker0: than he that's in the world. We have the ability, we have the power in
• 40:04
  Speaker0: Christ to be armed in the full armor
• 40:07
  Speaker0: and to stand against the enemy. But you see,
• 40:11
  Speaker0: when Amen. The harvest comes, and it's coming.
• 40:15
  Speaker0: It will pass some people up, but for all those who
• 40:19
  Speaker0: are hungry for the harvest and who love people and want people
• 40:24
  Speaker0: by the thousands, the millions to come to
• 40:27
  Speaker0: Christ in every tongue and tribe and nation,
• 40:32
  Speaker0: when people like that want to see the harvest of God,
• 40:35
  Speaker0: I want to tell you something, when the harvest comes, And the
• 40:39
  Speaker0: revival and harvest comes, do you think Satan just sits
• 40:43
  Speaker0: back and says, oh, shoot. Dadgum,
• 40:47
  Speaker0: I'm sorry that happened. I didn't— ooh, I wasn't watching.
• 40:52
  Speaker0: Look at all those students at Baylor, all those thousands of students
• 40:56
  Speaker0: that are coming to Christ and they are— oh, well,
• 41:00
  Speaker0: I'll just have to go somewhere else. Forget that
• 41:04
  Speaker0: group.
• 41:04
  Speaker1: No.
• 41:06
  Speaker0: Revival comes to
• 41:07
  Speaker0: the summit. Oh, well, shoot. I mean,
• 41:11
  Speaker0: what's been happening over this last week as we have felt the
• 41:15
  Speaker0: temperature rising in our services?
• 41:19
  Speaker0: I can feel it in the worship, can't you? Just rising
• 41:22
  Speaker0: in our services. Do you think Satan sits back and
• 41:26
  Speaker0: just ignores that?
• 41:31
  Speaker0: Because you see, Satan has one great agenda, and that's to
• 41:35
  Speaker0: destroy the work of God, to stop,
• 41:39
  Speaker0: hinder, quench the kingdom of
• 41:42
  Speaker0: God, because he wants to be God. And he
• 41:46
  Speaker0: knows that the way he does that with us, just like he did in the
• 41:49
  Speaker0: garden, is tempt us to turn
• 41:53
  Speaker0: away from the presence Yes.
• 41:57
  Speaker0: And when we turn away from nearness to God, when we walk away,
• 42:02
  Speaker0: when he dangles some sin or some false god out here
• 42:05
  Speaker0: and he tempts us to turn away and we just kind of walk away,
• 42:08
  Speaker0: hold it, God, I'll be back in a little bit, and we walk away and
• 42:11
  Speaker0: start playing with the things of the world. It doesn't have
• 42:15
  Speaker0: to be horrific. We don't have to be axe murderers.
• 42:18
  Speaker0: I mean, it could be just where we just get busy.
• 42:21
  Speaker0: And we're not listening to God, and we're not praying, and we're not
• 42:25
  Speaker0: talking to God, and we're not near God. God has said,
• 42:29
  Speaker0: draw near to me and I'll draw near to you. This is
• 42:33
  Speaker0: an absolute promise that I will do, but you have to
• 42:37
  Speaker0: draw near. When Satan tempts us to try to
• 42:40
  Speaker0: pull us away, we lose the presence and the power
• 42:44
  Speaker0: of God. And you say, man, I just feel terrible.
• 42:49
  Speaker0: Well, things are just so crummy. Why are things not working out? Because I've
• 42:53
  Speaker0: taken God out of the equation. And Satan
• 42:57
  Speaker0: is just constantly doing that. And I'm
• 43:01
  Speaker0: just warning you. I'm just warning us. I'm just calling us to say,
• 43:05
  Speaker0: when revival comes and spiritual awakening comes,
• 43:09
  Speaker0: and it's coming, do you want to be a part
• 43:13
  Speaker0: of it? If you do, you have to learn to recognize The
• 43:18
  Speaker0: enemy's temptation and pull and allurements.
• 43:23
  Speaker0: And we have the ability to just stand against him and resist him.
• 43:27
  Speaker0: If you belong to Christ, your life,
• 43:31
  Speaker0: lock, stock, and barrel, the title deed of your life belongs to
• 43:35
  Speaker0: Jesus. And you can say to Satan, Satan, you have no part in me.
• 43:40
  Speaker0: You have no room. I'm not going to give you any place. I don't have
• 43:43
  Speaker0: to give you any room. In my life. You may have to learn how to
• 43:46
  Speaker0: do that a little bit, but here's the truth: you stand up to the devil
• 43:50
  Speaker0: and he will flee from you. He will run from you.
• 43:55
  Speaker0: And if we're going to be effective and used in a time of great
• 43:58
  Speaker0: harvest, we've got to learn how to resist the devil.
• 44:01
  Speaker0: And here's another little— before we look at these last 2 things,
• 44:06
  Speaker0: here's another little piece of this.
• 44:09
  Speaker0: If you don't recognize Yes.
• 44:13
  Speaker0: The activity and the movement of
• 44:17
  Speaker0: Satan and his minions in this world,
• 44:21
  Speaker0: and you just kind of blindly go about thinking there's none of that going on,
• 44:24
  Speaker0: and you don't stand, and you don't pray, and you don't put on the
• 44:28
  Speaker0: full armor, and you don't resist him, guess what happens? We give
• 44:32
  Speaker0: Satan the field. We just give
• 44:36
  Speaker0: him the field. Here's a high school over here.
• 44:42
  Speaker0: If we're not standing, we just give him the field. Here's the high school.
• 44:47
  Speaker0: Here are those kids. Here are their young minds. Here's our neighborhood.
• 44:51
  Speaker0: We just give him the field. We're not praying for our neighbors. We're not thinking
• 44:55
  Speaker0: in terms of spiritual warfare and activity, and we're not praying
• 44:58
  Speaker0: for them. We're not standing like lights
• 45:02
  Speaker0: in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. So, we just give
• 45:06
  Speaker0: him the field. We just give him our block. We give him our neighborhood.
• 45:09
  Speaker0: And God wants us to stand like strong
• 45:13
  Speaker0: men and women and put on the full armor of God and
• 45:17
  Speaker0: stand against the enemy. Amen? And take the
• 45:21
  Speaker0: day and take the field. And that's what happens
• 45:25
  Speaker0: in days of spiritual awakening.
• 45:28
  Speaker1: Will you
• 45:29
  Speaker1: Amen.
• 45:29
  Speaker0: Will you get in the battle? Will you put
• 45:34
  Speaker0: on the full armor? Will you do what is necessary to
• 45:38
  Speaker0: recognize and resist the activity of the enemy
• 45:42
  Speaker0: in our world? And here's a 4th one.
• 45:45
  Speaker0: This is big.
• 45:49
  Speaker1: Are you ready?
• 45:52
  Speaker0: Will you instantly
• 45:54
  Speaker0: obey The Holy Spirit.
• 45:58
  Speaker0: That sounds so simple, doesn't it? I mean,
• 46:03
  Speaker0: just obey. Just when the Spirit moves
• 46:06
  Speaker0: you and speaks to your heart, or you read something in
• 46:11
  Speaker0: the Scripture and the Spirit speaks to you through the Word of God and
• 46:14
  Speaker0: by His Spirit and just tells you to do something,
• 46:17
  Speaker0: here's the key: will you instantly obey?
• 46:21
  Speaker0: Just instantly obey. Don't quench the
• 46:25
  Speaker0: movement of the Holy Spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5:19.
• 46:29
  Speaker0: When the Spirit is speaking to you, just don't quench it by
• 46:33
  Speaker0: disobedience, by just blowing
• 46:37
  Speaker0: it off. Instantly obey. So I
• 46:41
  Speaker0: have to tell you this. BJ was telling me this story.
• 46:46
  Speaker0: And 2 weeks ago when Kyle Reno was here, there were 2 of
• 46:50
  Speaker0: our young guys who were seated down here at the front. And they
• 46:54
  Speaker0: were both wearing red hoodies. And I don't know what that
• 46:58
  Speaker0: was all about. But anyway— And
• 47:05
  Speaker0: Kyle's— I think it was young adult pastor was sitting here by BJ.
• 47:09
  Speaker0: And towards the end of the service, he turned to BJ and
• 47:13
  Speaker0: he said, those 2 guys over there in the red hoodies?
• 47:14
  Speaker1: He said, yeah.
• 47:15
  Speaker0: He said, which one of those is God calling
• 47:19
  Speaker0: into the ministry? Just like
• 47:23
  Speaker0: that. And BJ had talked to one of those guys,
• 47:27
  Speaker0: and he said, oh, I know. It's this guy. He pointed him out.
• 47:31
  Speaker0: And he said, I really sense that he's
• 47:35
  Speaker0: struggling and wrestling with stepping over the line and really giving his all to Christ.
• 47:39
  Speaker0: And he said, I'm going to go talk to him.
• 47:40
  Speaker1: Wow.
• 47:41
  Speaker0: So after the service,
• 47:42
  Speaker0: he went and he talked to this guy.
• 47:47
  Speaker0: The next week, when— last week when Luke Lefever was
• 47:51
  Speaker0: here, I don't know if you remember, I do, in the
• 47:55
  Speaker0: middle of the response time, Luke said, I just sense
• 47:58
  Speaker0: there are 2 young men here that God is calling in the ministry.
• 48:04
  Speaker0: And he encouraged us to go lay our hands and encourage
• 48:08
  Speaker0: These young men, just pray for them.
• 48:12
  Speaker0: And this— the other guy,
• 48:16
  Speaker0: who, by the way, was still wearing the red hoodie.
• 48:20
  Speaker0: True story. I guess that's all he has. And so,
• 48:24
  Speaker0: he immediately came down to one of our staff guys
• 48:28
  Speaker0: pouring out his heart, wrestling with this, do I
• 48:32
  Speaker0: give up my life?
• 48:35
  Speaker0: For the rest of my life to Christ and
• 48:39
  Speaker0: to His ministry. And he was praying about that, and when
• 48:43
  Speaker0: he turned to go back to his seat, there was a woman standing there,
• 48:47
  Speaker0: and she said to him, God has
• 48:50
  Speaker0: told me that you are
• 48:54
  Speaker0: a marked man, and you're
• 48:57
  Speaker0: marked out for leadership. And whatever the cost is,
• 49:02
  Speaker0: just surrender to Christ.
• 49:06
  Speaker0: And God really used that in this young— you can imagine in
• 49:10
  Speaker0: this young man's life. BJ was later talking to
• 49:14
  Speaker0: that lady, and she said, you know, the interesting thing about that, I have
• 49:17
  Speaker0: no idea who he is. I was sitting in the back of the auditorium,
• 49:21
  Speaker0: and the Spirit of God just prompted me and said, go find a guy in
• 49:25
  Speaker0: the front. What's his name? with a red hoodie on.
• 49:28
  Speaker0: So glad he wore that old hoodie.
• 49:32
  Speaker0: You can take it off now, by the way.
• 49:36
  Speaker0: What's interesting about that is BJ was talking to this guy's
• 49:40
  Speaker0: dad later. And his dad said to him
• 49:45
  Speaker0: several years ago, 4 or 5 years ago, he said, God at our men's
• 49:49
  Speaker0: retreat told me 4 or 5 things that I was
• 49:52
  Speaker0: to believe him for. And one of them was for this to happen
• 49:56
  Speaker0: in my son. But he told me I couldn't call him.
• 50:01
  Speaker0: I had to call him. All 3 of those
• 50:04
  Speaker0: people were involved in just obeying
• 50:09
  Speaker0: the promptings of the Holy Spirit. I'm very
• 50:13
  Speaker0: anxious to see in the coming years what God does with
• 50:17
  Speaker0: these young men.
• 50:18
  Speaker1: Amen. Amen.
• 50:21
  Speaker0: Can you imagine what would just happen this week if
• 50:27
  Speaker0: every single one of us— if God tonight before the
• 50:31
  Speaker0: service is out just said to you, you know that $20 you got
• 50:35
  Speaker0: in your pocket? Why don't you go give it to this person over here?
• 50:41
  Speaker0: Go ask this lady if she needs anything.
• 50:46
  Speaker0: And then provide it by the grace of God.
• 50:50
  Speaker0: I mean, whatever the Lord tells you to do, just do it. Just do
• 50:54
  Speaker0: it. You know what happens when the body just
• 50:57
  Speaker0: obeys instantly and doesn't quench and doesn't come up
• 51:01
  Speaker0: with 1,000 excuses and doesn't say, but Lord, I don't have— but Lord, I can't
• 51:05
  Speaker0: do that— but Lord, what will they think of me? They just get up and
• 51:08
  Speaker0: do what the Spirit of God and the Word of God is telling them to
• 51:11
  Speaker0: do. You know what happens? The life of God walks
• 51:15
  Speaker0: through his body all around the world,
• 51:18
  Speaker0: just ministering, touching, healing, changing,
• 51:22
  Speaker0: giving the word, just doing all kinds of things that he wants to do all
• 51:26
  Speaker0: the time. But you see, he has confined himself in
• 51:30
  Speaker0: some ways to you,
• 51:34
  Speaker0: and he's waiting on us to unleash The life of God
• 51:39
  Speaker0: by instantly obeying His Spirit.
• 51:43
  Speaker0: And I'm telling you, that's what happens in times of awakening is
• 51:47
  Speaker0: the church gets back in alignment with the Spirit
• 51:52
  Speaker0: of God, and we begin to obey Him and not argue,
• 51:55
  Speaker0: not question, not hesitate. We just instantly
• 52:00
  Speaker0: obey. Tonight, before this night is out, God's going to just prompt somebody's heart
• 52:04
  Speaker0: in this Room to just obey the Lord. Just obey
• 52:08
  Speaker0: the Lord.
• 52:10
  Speaker1: Are you ready?
• 52:11
  Speaker0: Will you?
• 52:14
  Speaker0: Talk about it all night.
• 52:15
  Speaker1: Will you?
• 52:17
  Speaker0: Will we?
• 52:21
  Speaker0: Will we start praying big prayers that
• 52:25
  Speaker0: glorify God, such kind of prayers that are initiated from heaven And
• 52:29
  Speaker0: that we join by faith in praying and praying faithfully and fervently,
• 52:35
  Speaker0: so much so that when they're answered,
• 52:38
  Speaker0: there's no question that our big God has done
• 52:42
  Speaker0: that. Will you deal with all known sin,
• 52:47
  Speaker0: not playing with it, not giving the devil foothold
• 52:50
  Speaker0: in any way? Will you put on the armor and go to warfare against
• 52:54
  Speaker0: the enemy? In your life, in the lives of others?
• 52:58
  Speaker0: And will you instantly obey the promptings
• 53:02
  Speaker0: of the Holy Spirit? And there's one final thing, and to be honest
• 53:06
  Speaker0: about it, this whole message has
• 53:12
  Speaker0: led up to this one thing. This is
• 53:15
  Speaker0: what the Lord really put in my heart to say to us
• 53:19
  Speaker0: tonight. It's going to sound Yes. Not all that fantastic
• 53:25
  Speaker0: because it's something we just— we know.
• 53:31
  Speaker0: During a time of harvest,
• 53:36
  Speaker0: you simply share the
• 53:39
  Speaker0: gospel with people.
• 53:45
  Speaker0: You just tell people everywhere about the gospel.
• 53:50
  Speaker0: You don't have to be trained at
• 53:54
  Speaker0: this. You don't have to be— if you're a believer and you know Christ,
• 53:58
  Speaker0: you can ask people questions and tell them what God has done in your life
• 54:03
  Speaker0: and how He saved you and how He can save them.
• 54:07
  Speaker0: I was listening recently in a meeting with Jonathan
• 54:11
  Speaker0: Bacluta, who's one of the guys that God is using in the Awaken
• 54:14
  Speaker0: Us meetings, and they're saying—
• 54:16
  Speaker1: Yeah.
• 54:16
  Speaker0: hundreds and hundreds and thousands
• 54:18
  Speaker0: literally of college students. And he said to us,
• 54:21
  Speaker0: he said, you will be shocked to know what
• 54:25
  Speaker0: I share with these college students. He said, I'm going to tell you.
• 54:28
  Speaker0: And he told it to us in 5 minutes. It was the simplest explanation
• 54:32
  Speaker0: of the Gospel. But you see, God is the one who saves people. And He's
• 54:37
  Speaker0: just waiting for us to just hand the Gospel. Because in a
• 54:41
  Speaker0: time of harvest, There is incredible
• 54:45
  Speaker0: gospel receptivity.
• 54:47
  Speaker0: Hearts are open. So, my brother Jim, who is older than
• 54:52
  Speaker0: me, and both of us were
• 54:55
  Speaker0: in the Jesus Movement, we went through that together,
• 54:59
  Speaker0: we lived it together,
• 55:01
  Speaker0: and Jim said to me about 6 months ago, he said,
• 55:05
  Speaker0: we are in a spiritual awakening. I said, well, I agree,
• 55:08
  Speaker0: but why would you say that? He said, well, all the normal reasons
• 55:11
  Speaker0: that that you would talk about. But he said, I want to tell you a
• 55:13
  Speaker0: very practical story. And he said,
• 55:17
  Speaker0: Pam and I, his wife, they live in Kansas City, were preaching.
• 55:21
  Speaker0: I had to preach in California. And instead of flying, we just decided
• 55:26
  Speaker0: to take the car and just take 30 days and drive
• 55:30
  Speaker0: leisurely, kind of a big loop out to our speaking engagement and back.
• 55:34
  Speaker0: But he said, what was interesting about this Is we
• 55:38
  Speaker0: felt prompted to ask the Lord if he would let us
• 55:42
  Speaker0: talk to somebody, one person every
• 55:46
  Speaker0: day about Christ, just share the gospel with somebody.
• 55:50
  Speaker0: He'd bring somebody across. And he said, Bill, he said,
• 55:55
  Speaker0: not only was there one every single day, every day
• 55:58
  Speaker0: there was 3 and 4 and 5 people that
• 56:02
  Speaker0: would come to us just most unusual situation.
• 56:06
  Speaker0: And he said, you know what I decided to do? Jim's a brilliant preacher,
• 56:11
  Speaker0: and he knows stuff, you know. But he said, what I decided to do,
• 56:15
  Speaker0: I was just going to make a simple,
• 56:20
  Speaker0: honest statement and then just ask
• 56:24
  Speaker0: them a question. So I just— I would just— it'd be different every time.
• 56:27
  Speaker0: But he said, I'd just— I'd say something like, I'd be
• 56:31
  Speaker0: there eating in a restaurant or whatever it is that I just say to somebody,
• 56:35
  Speaker0: Jesus Christ has profoundly changed my
• 56:39
  Speaker0: life. That's it.
• 56:43
  Speaker0: Has he ever done that to you? And he said,
• 56:46
  Speaker0: here's the interesting thing. He said, Bill, what convinced
• 56:49
  Speaker0: me that we were in a spiritual awakening, he said, in all of those
• 56:53
  Speaker0: encounters by the dozens, was not one single person
• 56:58
  Speaker0: who didn't lean in. There was no resistance.
• 57:03
  Speaker0: In fact, everyone wanted to hear the gospel. He said it
• 57:07
  Speaker0: was just like the Jesus Movement.
• 57:11
  Speaker0: And that's the time we're in. Somebody say hallelujah.
• 57:16
  Speaker1: Hallelujah.
• 57:17
  Speaker0: God is opening the hearts. Now, you would imagine
• 57:20
  Speaker0: that would be True, wouldn't you? If God
• 57:24
  Speaker0: was sending an awakening, if God was in His mercy opening our eyes and
• 57:28
  Speaker0: wanting to accelerate His work and show us what Heaven was like,
• 57:32
  Speaker0: if God wanted to bring a great harvest and raise
• 57:35
  Speaker0: up the next great army to reach the world for Christ,
• 57:38
  Speaker0: maybe for the last time, wouldn't it make sense
• 57:42
  Speaker0: that God would just open up hearts to the
• 57:45
  Speaker0: Gospel?
• 57:46
  Speaker1: Amen.
• 57:48
  Speaker0: But you see, how can they hear
• 57:52
  Speaker0: if we will not open our mouths?
• 57:56
  Speaker0: Now, I'll tell you something, we're not real good at that.
• 58:01
  Speaker0: We're just— let's just be honest, right? I mean, we're just not great at that.
• 58:06
  Speaker0: We can go for days, weeks, months, maybe never share
• 58:09
  Speaker0: Christ with anybody.
• 58:10
  Speaker1: Amen.
• 58:12
  Speaker0: Because we're
• 58:13
  Speaker0: so wrapped up in ourselves and our thing and doing our deal, and we don't—
• 58:17
  Speaker0: sometimes we just don't even care for people that are lost
• 58:21
  Speaker0: and dying and on their way to eternity.
• 58:25
  Speaker0: I'm going to ask you a big question.
• 58:29
  Speaker0: Will you simply
• 58:34
  Speaker0: share the gospel?
• 58:36
  Speaker1: Amen.
• 58:38
  Speaker0: Just every day. Maybe just
• 58:42
  Speaker0: do like Jim. Lord, would you bring me somebody every day?
• 58:46
  Speaker0: Wouldn't that be something? Just every day.
• 58:49
  Speaker0: And I'm just going to ask them— I'm just going to speak a sincere
• 58:53
  Speaker0: statement and ask them if they know Christ and
• 58:57
  Speaker0: see where God takes it. What would happen?
• 59:02
  Speaker0: You know what would happen? If you said tonight— and
• 59:06
  Speaker0: that's the point of this night, I believe— if you said
• 59:10
  Speaker0: tonight, I'll do that.
• 59:13
  Speaker0: God, I'm reporting for duty. I'm reporting for duty
• 59:17
  Speaker0: tonight. I'll do that tonight. In the morning, I'll do
• 59:21
  Speaker0: that at work. In the morning, I'll do that this week in my
• 59:25
  Speaker0: neighborhood. I'll do that at school.
• 59:28
  Speaker0: Wherever.
• 59:29
  Speaker1: Whenever.
• 59:30
  Speaker0: I am absolutely at
• 59:32
  Speaker0: your disposal. I live for
• 59:35
  Speaker0: you and for the sake of the gospel of
• 59:39
  Speaker0: the Lord Jesus Christ. So I haven't been doing that, Lord, but Lord,
• 59:43
  Speaker0: I want to be involved in
• 59:47
  Speaker0: the harvest, and I don't want to miss it.
• 59:52
  Speaker0: So will you simply Boldly
• 59:59
  Speaker0: share the gospel.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker1: Well, amen. God is moving. I,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker1: you know, you'd have to have your head in the sand to not
• 1:00:12
  Speaker1: see the activity of God around us. But I want to tell you something.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker1: There have been many people in many seasons of Great Awakening That
• 1:00:22
  Speaker1: have just missed God. They just weren't ready for it. They— or God
• 1:00:26
  Speaker1: asked for more and they just were unwilling to pay the price.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker1: So I want you not just to hear what
• 1:00:35
  Speaker1: we talked about today, but for us to pray it in for a moment like
• 1:00:40
  Speaker1: we like to do every week. Right now,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker1: would you join me in prayer?
• 1:00:45
  Speaker1: Father, I pray that what we've just heard and the call To
• 1:00:50
  Speaker1: prepare ourselves would
• 1:00:54
  Speaker1: not only be heard, but would be heeded.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker1: Father, that we would adjust our praying
• 1:01:03
  Speaker1: and start asking You, God, what big prayers
• 1:01:08
  Speaker1: do You want me to believe You for? We would believe
• 1:01:13
  Speaker1: You for extraordinary things. And Father,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker1: we would, we would deal with every known sin.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker1: I pray that we do that today. And I pray,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker1: Father, that you would open up our mouths. Lord, this is one
• 1:01:26
  Speaker1: of the great prayers of Paul every time,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker1: that, that God would give him utterance and that he
• 1:01:34
  Speaker1: would be bold. And Lord, we pray
• 1:01:38
  Speaker1: that we would cooperate with you on that. And I
• 1:01:42
  Speaker1: want you, as I'm praying, To just pray this
• 1:01:45
  Speaker1: one-sentence prayer. Are you ready? Here it is.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker1: Lord, make me a mighty
• 1:01:54
  Speaker1: instrument of revival.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker1: Would you pray that prayer? Lord, make me—
• 1:02:02
  Speaker1: just pray it— a mighty instrument of
• 1:02:07
  Speaker1: revival.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker0: Amen.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker1: Amen.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker1: Well, thanks so much. And thanks for joining us these last 4
• 1:02:14
  Speaker1: weeks. We're rolling into, to more next
• 1:02:18
  Speaker1: week, and we hope you'll join us on the One Crime Podcast.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker0: Thank you.