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#230 Why America Needs a Spiritual Awakening Now · The OneCry Podcast

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  Speaker0: Having been in the Jesus movement in the 70s and late 60s,
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  Speaker0: I watched many, many churches and pastors and religious leaders who misinterpreted
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  Speaker0: what was going on and even backpedaled and completely missed the movement of
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  Speaker0: God, the activity of God.
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  Speaker0: And their churches, years later, bore the consequences of that.
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  Speaker0: Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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  Speaker0: The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
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  Speaker1: Well, welcome to the One Cry Podcast. I'm Kyle Reno with my partner in crime,
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  Speaker1: Bill Eliff. How are you doing today, buddy?
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  Speaker0: I'm good. Okay. You know, some of our podcasts are international,
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  Speaker0: and I don't know if they'll understand what a partner.
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  Speaker0: But let me just say, we're doing nothing illegal.
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  Speaker1: Yes, exactly right. Just in case you ever wondered. Yeah.
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  Speaker1: It's just a figure of speech. Figure of speech. Good old Southern boy dialect coming out.
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  Speaker1: So, man, we are honored to our listeners that you give us some time today to
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  Speaker1: really be rightly reminded of the ways of God, what God has done in redemptive
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  Speaker1: history and in movements and revival.
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  Speaker1: And, man, we're seeing the Lord move in profound ways in these days.
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  Speaker1: And we want to be just rightly positioned.
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  Speaker1: And, Bill, I know God's given you some specific clarity around that.
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  Speaker1: It's just helpful even hearing you talk about it before. It reminded me of a
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  Speaker1: statement, Bill, a guy that me and you both love, Robert Lewis.
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  Speaker1: He said, you know, you can't become what you can't define.
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  Speaker1: And I thought, you know, unless you really understand what revival is and why
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  Speaker1: revival is needed, you know, unless you rightly believe about it and then know how to live into it,
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  Speaker1: you know, it'd be easy to forget about it, to miss it, you know,
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  Speaker1: and to not engage inside of it.
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  Speaker1: So, man, help us really rightly understand and how we should position ourself for it.
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  Speaker0: Well, you know, having been in the Jesus movement in the 70s and late 60s, I watched many,
• 2:32
  Speaker0: many churches and pastors and religious leaders who misinterpreted what was
• 2:38
  Speaker0: going on and even backpedaled and completely missed the movement of God, the activity of God.
• 2:47
  Speaker0: And their churches, years later, bore the consequences of that.
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  Speaker0: I think there's some people, Kyle, that don't know what revival is and spiritual
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  Speaker0: awakening. They don't know that those are two different things,
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  Speaker0: but they're linked together.
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  Speaker0: There's some people that don't believe in revival. I've had many pastors say,
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  Speaker0: well, you know, I'm just going to do the blocking and tackling of the church
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  Speaker0: and just, you know, just plot along and doing what the church is supposed to
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  Speaker0: do. And I agree with that.
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  Speaker0: I've been a pastor for 57 years.
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  Speaker0: So, you know, you just every week you teach, preach, pray, disciple, do all those things.
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  Speaker0: But there is something that is absolutely important about revival that we need
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  Speaker0: to so understand that we carry a vision for it and a passion for it.
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  Speaker0: And I think, Kyle, that there's some people,
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  Speaker0: even those of us who understand a little more what revival is,
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  Speaker0: that we look at it And we're not sure we want to pay the price because revival
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  Speaker0: is, particularly nationwide revivals, they're messy, right?
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  Speaker0: And all kinds of different people are involved and there are things you got to figure out.
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  Speaker0: There are things you have to navigate. So it's a lot easier maybe to just sit
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  Speaker0: in my church and turn the lights on and preach on Sunday and then to really pursue God in revival.
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  Speaker0: But that's what I want to talk about here for just a few minutes.
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  Speaker0: Now, let me give two reasons why I think we must sustain not only a vision for revival,
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  Speaker0: but also a passion for revival and a desire to experience revival and spiritual awakening.
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  Speaker0: Number one is because revival is necessary.
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  Speaker0: It's just necessary. You know, my favorite definition of revival is by Richard
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  Speaker0: Owen Roberts, and he said that.
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  Speaker0: Revival is the extraordinary movement of the Spirit of God among God's people
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  Speaker0: that produces extraordinary results.
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  Speaker0: And God's moving all the time. I mean, you couldn't get out of bed this morning
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  Speaker0: without the activity of God and the movement of God.
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  Speaker0: But in times of revival, God moves in an extraordinary way, in an accelerated
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  Speaker0: way, as Jonathan Edwards says.
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  Speaker0: And we see the results of that.
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  Speaker0: Now, I've added a word to that, and that is, I've added the word necessary.
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  Speaker0: So I like to say that revival is the necessary, extraordinary work of the spirit
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  Speaker0: that produces extraordinary results.
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  Speaker0: Now, why would we say necessary? And let me just give three bullets to that.
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  Speaker0: Number one, it's necessary because we are inherently sinful.
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  Speaker0: We're just sinful. And if you study revival at all, you know that there's a
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  Speaker0: cycle to revival and spiritual awakening in human history.
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  Speaker0: And the cycle repeats over and over again. You can see it real vividly in the
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  Speaker0: Old Testament, where the people of God are walking with him, and then we fall away.
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  Speaker0: And we do that because we have these three enemies of the world and the flesh and the devil.
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  Speaker0: And when we fall away, God is really loving, and he disciplines us.
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  Speaker0: And he sends his discipline, his judging hand, because—and that's a good thing.
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  Speaker0: It's like paying to the human body to say, hey, you're you're missing it.
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  Speaker0: You're you're doing something you shouldn't do.
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  Speaker0: And when that discipline gets intense enough, you'll you'll read at the bottom
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  Speaker0: of that cycle, also the Old Testament and all the people cried out.
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  Speaker0: In other words, we get so desperate that we begin to pray in a whole different way.
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  Speaker0: And God hears that prayer and answers by reviving his people and then ultimately
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  Speaker0: sending spiritual awakening among the lost.
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  Speaker0: So that word spirit, that phrase spiritual awakening means for lost people just start waking up.
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  Speaker0: They just come to an awareness of Christ and their need and they and they and they cry out to the Lord.
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  Speaker0: So we need the cycle to occur because we're inherently sinful and we fall away
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  Speaker0: and we need to be revived.
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  Speaker0: If you don't believe that, just read in the New Testament, Revelation 1 to 4.
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  Speaker0: And the churches, the early churches had fallen away, most of them.
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  Speaker0: And Jesus, the great reviver, comes and he points out what each church needed
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  Speaker0: to do to get back on track with the Lord. But here's a second reason.
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  Speaker0: Why it's necessary, and that is because God is incredibly merciful,
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  Speaker0: and he has a great job, a great mission to accomplish.
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  Speaker0: And the only reason that revival would ever come anywhere is because of the mercy of God.
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  Speaker0: It's not something that we can produce, we can cooperate with God,
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  Speaker0: But we can't say, Lord, we're going to do one, two, three, and we expect you
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  Speaker0: to bring revival by the spring.
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  Speaker0: Doesn't work that way. It's according to God's sovereign purposes and hand.
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  Speaker0: But there are things that happen during times of revival that don't happen any other way.
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  Speaker0: The revivals in American history have come every 30 to 60 years.
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  Speaker0: The first Great Awakening, 1735 and following.
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  Speaker0: The second Great Awakening, 1800 to roughly 1820, 1825.
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  Speaker0: The third Great Wave of Revival nationally was in the Great Prayer Revival of
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  Speaker0: 1857-58, in which one million people came to faith in Christ out of a population of 30 million people.
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  Speaker0: And then about 40 years later, the Welsh Revival, which went all the way around the world.
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  Speaker0: And then about 50, 60 years later, the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s.
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  Speaker0: That was incredible. And now, 50 years later,
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  Speaker0: we're experiencing another wave of revival and spiritual awakening that can,
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  Speaker0: I think we can now absolutely say we are in that.
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  Speaker0: We're not seeing it everywhere, but we're certainly seeing it in a way that
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  Speaker0: has continued for the last two or three years.
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  Speaker0: So why do we need revival? Why don't we need to believe that God does these
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  Speaker0: necessary extraordinary movements of the Spirit of God that produce extraordinary
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  Speaker0: results? Well, we're inherently sinful.
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  Speaker0: God's incredibly merciful and he needs a revived church to accomplish his mission.
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  Speaker0: And then a third reason is because revival is incredibly effective.
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  Speaker0: It's just effective. It does things that can't be accomplished any other way.
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  Speaker0: And let me just mention these because I think it's really important for us to
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  Speaker0: understand and to carry this in our heart constantly as a reminder of why we need to pray for,
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  Speaker0: be passionate about, and seek the reviving work of God in our day.
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  Speaker0: What does revival do? Well, number one, it revives.
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  Speaker0: It just revives the church. It brings the church back to life again.
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  Speaker0: I mean, all of us have seen churches and we've seen Christians,
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  Speaker0: including ourselves, that have lost our love for Christ.
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  Speaker0: Our love has grown cold. We have moved away in our affections from the Lord
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  Speaker0: Jesus, and we just feel distance from him. And we need a reviving, a renewing.
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  Speaker0: We need to be brought to life again.
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  Speaker0: And that's exactly what extraordinary works of God do.
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  Speaker0: I mean, in the 1857 revival,
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  Speaker0: a lay missionary started, but he was so burdened about the condition of what
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  Speaker0: was happening in his city, New York City, which was a city of about 800,000.
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  Speaker1: At that time.
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  Speaker0: My city that I live in, Little Rock, Arkansas, is about 700,000.
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  Speaker0: So it's roughly the same size as Little Rock is now. He started a noonday prayer meeting.
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  Speaker0: Six men came the first week, 20 the next, 60 the next, and in three months,
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  Speaker0: 50,000 people were meeting every day in every hall across that city.
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  Speaker0: And just think about the fact, what it would be, what would you say was happening
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  Speaker0: if just supernaturally with no orchestration but God,
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  Speaker0: 50,000 Christians met every single day of the week, the work week in your city.
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  Speaker0: What would you say? That's just revival. That's the hand of God reviving the church.
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  Speaker0: And that swept across the nation in such incredible ways that in Portland,
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  Speaker0: Oregon, for instance, on the other coast,
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  Speaker0: 200 shopkeepers signed a covenant that they would close their shops every day
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  Speaker0: at noon so everybody could go to the prayer meeting.
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  Speaker0: That's the reviving of the church.
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  Speaker0: And I just want you to ask yourself, do you think in our nation right now,
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  Speaker0: the church of God needs reviving?
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  Speaker0: And the answer is yes. Only revival does that.
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  Speaker0: Secondly, revival redeems the lost.
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  Speaker0: And Jonathan Edwards said that in times of revival, the work of God is accelerated.
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  Speaker0: We used to have an old phrase in the 60s about our cars to put the pedal to
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  Speaker0: the metal, to really go fast.
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  Speaker0: And God puts the pedal to the metal in time's revival.
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  Speaker0: Again, First Great Awakening, 15% of the population of America came to Christ in just a few years.
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  Speaker0: The prayer revival of 1857,
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  Speaker0: you're going to think this is untrue, but it's absolutely documented that during
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  Speaker0: that prayer revival in New York City,
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  Speaker0: again, that had 800,000 people,
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  Speaker0: 10,000 people a week were coming to faith in Christ.
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  Speaker0: And just get this in your head, because we don't have it in our head,
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  Speaker0: and that's why we don't pray big prayers.
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  Speaker0: That's why we have small faith, weak faith, and small prayers,
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  Speaker0: is we don't understand what God can do, and it's the same God in times of revival.
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  Speaker0: We look across the landscape of human history, and there have been moments where
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  Speaker0: our whole nations have been brought to their knees because of the work of Christ
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  Speaker0: and the work of his spirit.
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  Speaker0: So here's a good way to think about it.
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  Speaker0: Look at the population of your city and think of what the number would be if
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  Speaker0: 15% of your city's population came to Christ in the next 12 months.
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  Speaker0: In the Welsh Revival, 100,000 people came to faith in Christ in Wales in nine months.
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  Speaker0: Over 10,000 people a month in that small nation that's the size of New Jersey.
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  Speaker0: And 20 years later, 80,000 of those were still walking with the Lord.
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  Speaker0: That's the supernatural work of God. Not only does it revive the church and
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  Speaker0: redeem the lost, it restores the culture, right?
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  Speaker0: It just changes culture. And as one pastor in the Welsh Revival said,
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  Speaker0: that the revival is doing what decades of legislation could not accomplish.
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  Speaker0: Half, it cut drunkenness in half, unwed mothers to a fourth of what it was.
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  Speaker0: This is what revival really does.
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  Speaker0: It restores the culture. We look at our culture right now in America,
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  Speaker0: which has taken a dramatic turn in the last decade, sexually, morally,
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  Speaker0: mentally, and you just think, well, nothing could change that.
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  Speaker0: We're just going down, and we have great churches that are doing great things,
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  Speaker0: but nothing is really changing the trajectory of our culture nationally.
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  Speaker0: But I want to tell you something, revival could change that.
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  Speaker0: It could change it dramatically, and it would change it dramatically.
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  Speaker0: But here's one of the things that I'm most excited about.
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  Speaker0: And that is that revival and awakening redeems generations.
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  Speaker0: About almost three years ago now, as you know.
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  Speaker0: God just walked into the room in power in Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky.
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  Speaker0: And a chapel service ended up lasting for 16 days, morning, noon,
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  Speaker0: and night. Lasted all day.
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  Speaker0: When I heard about it, my wife and I got in the car and immediately went to
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  Speaker0: Wilmore and walked into that auditorium, which was packed.
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  Speaker0: And we were overwhelmed with the presence of God.
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  Speaker0: I watched as a bit of a revival student and historian, I've studied it for 50
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  Speaker0: years, and I watched these students fall on their face at the altar.
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  Speaker0: They had well-trained prayer counselors that didn't just say to those students,
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  Speaker0: well, God bless you, let me put my hand on your shoulder and pray for you.
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  Speaker0: They knew how to pray through at that altar, how to pray those students and adults through.
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  Speaker0: And so you would see them on their knees for 30 minutes or longer.
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  Speaker0: And then later you'd hear them stand and give testimony. and the testimonies were so profound.
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  Speaker0: It wasn't, well, I've decided to be nicer.
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  Speaker0: It was, I was raped five years ago and I've lived with a stain of this and I
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  Speaker0: thought I would never get over it and God has set me free. I was abused for years by my dad.
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  Speaker0: I've gone through this. I've gone through that.
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  Speaker0: The president of the seminary told me, He said over at the seminary side,
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  Speaker0: which was an overflow room, he said,
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  Speaker0: we're seeing just this enormous number of students who have been in multi-year addictions,
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  Speaker0: particularly to drugs, that are set free or just instantly set free.
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  Speaker0: No need for 20 years of counseling. I'm not opposed to counseling,
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  Speaker0: but no need for years and years of, you know, of trying to get redeemed from these things.
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  Speaker0: Now, listen, we've looked in America at the next generation, particularly the Gen Z.
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  Speaker0: And if you're like me, you thought, I don't know if we can pull this thing back.
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  Speaker0: Because students don't even know if they're a boy or a girl.
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  Speaker0: I mean, they're so messed up. The generational things that have happened,
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  Speaker0: the family destruction that has happened, that has created.
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  Speaker0: The most popular phrase in the school now is mental health and the mental health
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  Speaker0: crisis that you hear about all the time.
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  Speaker0: What could possibly redeem that? And I was sitting there in Hughes Auditorium
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  Speaker0: at Asbury University, and I was hearing story after story after story,
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  Speaker0: and it hit me, God,
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  Speaker0: you're redeeming a generation.
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  Speaker0: You could turn this generation around just like this.
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  Speaker0: And in the last three years, we've watched that happen with tens of thousands of college students.
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  Speaker0: You know, revival has come to America approximately every 40 years.
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  Speaker0: You know what you call 40 years? You call it a generation.
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  Speaker0: And God is redeeming a generation right now, preparing them to lead in the next,
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  Speaker0: to pick up the torch and carry it forward in the next days.
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  Speaker0: And one final thing that revival does, it can't happen any other way.
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  Speaker0: Revival reignites the mission.
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  Speaker0: I just read this morning, Kyle,
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  Speaker0: the incredible report from the head of the International Mission Board of the
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  Speaker0: Southern Baptist Convention, which I believe is the largest denominational board in the world.
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  Speaker0: And he said that the applications for their pipeline into missionary service have increased by 500%.
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  Speaker0: Wow. Now, a few years ago, we were struggling to get people to agree to go to the mission field.
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  Speaker0: Now, in this time of the beginning of this revival among the next generation, a pipeline is up by 500%.
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  Speaker0: I was in my den this morning when I read that, and I just shouted, you know what that is?
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  Speaker0: That's a sign of revival because every major mission movement in human history
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  Speaker0: has come on the heels of a movement of revival.
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  Speaker0: So we must maintain this vision, this understanding of revival.
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  Speaker0: And let me say one more thing, Kyle, and then I want you to respond.
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  Speaker0: I'm saying we must respond. You know why?
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  Speaker0: Because revival is necessary, but revival is about us.
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  Speaker0: God uses people and impacts people in revival.
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  Speaker0: And revival is a sovereign work that has names in the story.
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  Speaker0: Just one after another. People you wouldn't expect, a 26-year-old Bible college
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  Speaker0: student who was the one God used to ignite and be catalytic in the Welsh revival.
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  Speaker0: My brother, Jim, was at my house a few days ago, Kyle, and he and his wife had
• 23:24
  Speaker0: taken a 30-day ministry trip all the way out to California from Kansas City, Missouri.
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  Speaker0: And they'd traveled and seen a few things along the way, but they determined
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  Speaker0: that they were going to try to share Christ with somebody every day.
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  Speaker0: He said to me, Bill, I believe now with absolute certainty that the next spiritual awakening has come.
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  Speaker0: I said, why do you say that?
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  Speaker0: He said, not only did we share Christ, not only once a day, sometimes three and four times a day,
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  Speaker0: but he said every single person we talked to leaned into the conversation and walked more.
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  Speaker0: And I said, well, what did you how did you do that? He said,
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  Speaker0: you know what? It's so simple.
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  Speaker0: I just started all those conversations with a sincere statement and a follow up question.
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  Speaker0: He said, I just say to them, you know, Christ has profoundly transformed my life.
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  Speaker0: Has that ever happened to you? And he said, I didn't have to have a tricky,
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  Speaker0: clever statement to get in the conversation.
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  Speaker0: They were just waiting for someone to talk about this.
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  Speaker0: So I think we're there.
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  Speaker0: And I think those that are going to experience this are those who have a vision
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  Speaker0: for and a passion for revival and awakening.
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  Speaker1: Man praise god will well i think you're
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  Speaker1: right the environment is right in our nation right now it doesn't surprise me
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  Speaker1: to hear that story that jim shared or what's happened in the last three years
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  Speaker1: since what occurred at asbury seminary and things that were happening simultaneously
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  Speaker1: even when that was happening there in other places local churches denominational expressions
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  Speaker1: of that and it just makes me think you know we should be praying for that and
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  Speaker1: believing for that and leading toward that I came across you you've read this
• 25:38
  Speaker1: book I really think the Lord wanted me to
• 25:41
  Speaker1: Find it and read it. I'd never read it. The Hour That Changes the World by Dick Eastman.
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  Speaker1: And this quote, which plays in what you said, the degree to which prayer is mobilized.
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  Speaker1: And I think prayer even toward the move of God is mobilized is the degree to
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  Speaker1: which the world will be evangelized.
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  Speaker1: Wow and uh and i thought as
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  Speaker1: you're saying that like what revival does man
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  Speaker1: the positioning for the real move of god what it does is it expedites the work
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  Speaker1: of god in every way in every way in moral uh renewal and you know ethical change
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  Speaker1: in society people coming into the kingdom of god that the but that the real
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  Speaker1: move of god really brings everything else that is true to the kingdom of God.
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  Speaker1: And that's what we need today, man. So I know that this has sparked my heart
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  Speaker1: and reminded me of these truths.
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  Speaker1: Why don't, Bill, you lead us to pray it in now and for our listeners to believe
• 26:38
  Speaker1: where God sent them to lead and live for the next great move of God right there.
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  Speaker0: I would love to do that, Kyle. And as always,
• 26:49
  Speaker0: the title of this podcast and this movement and initiative is one cry,
• 26:57
  Speaker0: a united cry for spiritual awakening.
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  Speaker0: And so it's foundationally a movement of prayer, just like you said, Kyle.
• 27:11
  Speaker0: And so we want you to pray with us. I'll lead us in prayer, but I want you,
• 27:16
  Speaker0: wherever you are, to just pause right now.
• 27:19
  Speaker0: You may be with a group. We have
• 27:21
  Speaker0: some groups that listen to the OneCraft podcast and then pray together.
• 27:26
  Speaker0: But let's bow together right now and let me lead us in that direction.
• 27:31
  Speaker0: And I wonder if you would just take a moment.
• 27:36
  Speaker0: As we enter into the Lord's presence and we see him there seated on the throne, he is the great God.
• 27:45
  Speaker0: And just think of all that he is that leads to these seasons of revival.
• 27:54
  Speaker0: And would you praise him for that?
• 27:57
  Speaker0: He's a God of incredible mercy. We don't deserve it.
• 28:03
  Speaker0: He's a God of faithfulness he fulfills his covenant promises,
• 28:12
  Speaker0: he's a God of salvation he's a God who has a great intent and he doesn't desire that,
• 28:22
  Speaker0: any should miss the work of salvation but that all would come to repentance
• 28:30
  Speaker0: Would you thank him for that?
• 28:36
  Speaker0: And if you have found yourself just kind of hesitant about this whole issue
• 28:43
  Speaker0: of revival and awakening or negligent about it,
• 28:48
  Speaker0: not praying for it, not pursuing, and it's not pursuing revival.
• 28:54
  Speaker0: It's pursuing the Lord in this reviving work that he does.
• 29:00
  Speaker0: Would you ask his forgiveness for that?
• 29:07
  Speaker0: And would you say, Lord, give me faith, big faith to believe you for your reviving,
• 29:18
  Speaker0: saving, awakening work in our day.
• 29:22
  Speaker0: Just ask him for that. Give me big faith to pray big prayers right now in this
• 29:30
  Speaker0: season that we're entering.
• 29:39
  Speaker0: And so, Father, we just, I can't ever just talk about these things without being
• 29:47
  Speaker0: so stirred and so grateful to you.
• 29:52
  Speaker0: Father, you have loved us so much that you sent your son, and you loved us so
• 29:58
  Speaker0: much that when we pull away from your son,
• 30:01
  Speaker0: which we often do, that you come to revive us again and bring us back to our first love.
• 30:10
  Speaker0: And we're so grateful that you keep speaking to us, that you keep manifesting
• 30:18
  Speaker0: yourself to us, that you keep calling us.
• 30:21
  Speaker0: And Lord, that you've made promises. If we draw near to you,
• 30:25
  Speaker0: you would draw near to us.
• 30:28
  Speaker0: You would draw near.
• 30:30
  Speaker0: And so, Father, we pray for that in our day, and I just pray for everyone who's
• 30:37
  Speaker0: listening now that we just wouldn't miss, because we have blinded eyes or calloused hearts,
• 30:44
  Speaker0: we wouldn't miss what you're doing all around us right now.
• 30:49
  Speaker0: We want to cooperate. Lord, like my brother Jim and his wife saying,
• 30:57
  Speaker0: we want to share Christ. We want to look for where Christ is moving every day and join him.
• 31:05
  Speaker0: And we pray, Father, that you would give us boldness to do exactly what you're
• 31:12
  Speaker0: asking us to do in every regard.
• 31:17
  Speaker0: So we thank you, Father, and we thank you for what you're doing.
• 31:20
  Speaker0: And we pray, Father, it wouldn't just happen in our city or our state or even our nation.
• 31:26
  Speaker0: We pray, Father, and we're seeing it, that this would happen all around the
• 31:31
  Speaker0: world, in India, in South America, Lord, in Russia, in Iran, in Iraq,
• 31:38
  Speaker0: Lord, and just all across the world.
• 31:42
  Speaker0: We pray for a great harvest moment.
• 31:46
  Speaker0: And that would bring the gospel to every tongue and people and nation and tribe.
• 31:53
  Speaker0: And we ask that all of that would be done so that you would receive the worship
• 31:58
  Speaker0: that you deserve, but that we're depriving you of so often.
• 32:03
  Speaker0: In Jesus' precious name, we pray. Amen.
• 32:08
  Speaker1: Amen. Man, great truth, Bill. Thank you so much for laying that out for us.
• 32:13
  Speaker1: So I'd encourage our listeners, man, take some time to not just hear it,
• 32:17
  Speaker1: but to really meditate on these truths and let it move you to a posture and
• 32:21
  Speaker1: position to pray it in and maybe share it.
• 32:23
  Speaker1: If you're a pastor, I would encourage you to share it with your staff.
• 32:27
  Speaker1: Maybe have a conversation around those things. It really does help get the word
• 32:31
  Speaker1: out on what God's doing. If you will share it, maybe send it to somebody so
• 32:35
  Speaker1: that we might see this flame spread across our nation and the nations.
• 32:40
  Speaker1: So we're grateful for you. Thank you for the time today, and we look forward
• 32:43
  Speaker1: to being back with you next week.