In this sermon, the speaker addresses the lack of revival in the Western world, particularly in America, despite being perceived as leaders with abundant resources. They highlight the contrast between the rich countries, where revival is lacking, and the poor countries, where revival is flourishing. The speaker suggests that the Western world has become complacent and spiritually lazy, lacking the fervor and radical devotion seen in other nations experiencing revival. They emphasize the need for a spiritual awakening and question what it will take for revival to occur in America and other wealthy nations.

Okay, well, what will it take to get revival in America? This is the key question to me. One of the key questions, I think, in the Earth right now, it should be the key question for all of us, is why is the West not having revival when most of the rest of the world is? Why, when we are perceived as the leaders of the Earth, and we're the rich people with all the resources, and you go into our Christian bookshops, and they're full of Christian books, you know, and $15 each, and by now we should be experts on everything, but I tell you what, in the third world countries, they have revival and we don't. Now, there's got to be something screwed up about that. There should be something so making us anxious, because we've heard all these prophecies for years and years and years, and I've heard them and believe them, that a great harvest is coming right at the end of the age, and we are to partake in this harvest, and I want to tell you it's already started, but it's not happening here. It's not happening in New Zealand. It's not happening in Australia. In fact, all around the world, if you go to the places that have all the money and resources and all of the material things and the comforts of life, we're the people not having revivals, and the whole earth is full of poor people who are having revival. I wonder if there's a correlation between that, between the fact that we've grown fat and lazy, and we no longer get revivals like we used to. I did a study one time, because I write on revival history all the time. I have a website called revivalschool.com, so my job, literally my job, is to find out about revivals and write about them, and I've been doing that for many, many years. I looked back in the history of America, and I found that for the last 250 years, America has been having revivals, massive awakenings every 50 years, and I want to tell you right now we're at the 50-year mark again, and there ain't no revival. We have arrived at the very time when America always has an awakening, and we're not having one, and that strikes me as very, very alarming, because I know of one other nation that did the same pattern. It's called Wales. It used to be the greatest land of revivals in the whole world, and they had their last revival 100 years ago, and they've had none since, and their entire country, in many ways, has gone down the toilet since then, because the blessing of God has lifted off that land. They have incredible unemployment. They have solo parents everywhere, drug addiction everywhere. The economy has taken a nosedive. They have 7% church attendance now, 7%. Now, America's still up in the 40% mark. Forty percent of Americans claim to go to church regularly. Why is that? Why is it so high? It's because for 250 years, we've had revivals keeping America going. 250 years of regular awakenings have kept America a spiritual country, but in the last 50 years, we have, if you look at the statistics, I liken it to what's happened with our health in the Western world, and especially in America. If you ever want to see a fairly horrific video sometime, there's one called Super Size Me, talking about how the obesity levels in the last 50 years in the United States, especially, and it's in New Zealand now and everything. We're a rich country in New Zealand. We have a lot of the same problems that America has, because we're a wealthy nation. So is Australia, which is right next to New Zealand. Very similar countries. That's the kind of level of prosperity that we have. It's almost as much as America. Not quite, but pretty close. Now, Super Size Me tells the story of the last 80 years. I'm pretty sure the statistics go that America used to be number 2 in the world for health, and the health has gone down and down and down and down. I believe America is 80-something in the world for health now. Why is that? It's because we're fattening ourselves up on the worst kind of foods imaginable. The most worst processed, fattening donuts and every other thing on earth, we have them all in abundance and we're eating too many of them. And we're no longer an extremely healthy country. We're making ourselves sick. We're feeding ourselves to death and smoking cigarettes more than any other country because we can afford them. And people are drinking more because they can afford it. And so because we actually have more money now, it's helping kill us. And the same thing applies to New Zealand. Why is it the rich countries, why is it the prosperous countries, that are last into the harvest? You know, there was an interesting book written recently, I think it was last year, called Megashift. That book was all about the revivals that are going on worldwide. Very powerful book. I read all the footnotes of that book because I wanted to make sure that this guy was credible, that he had his statistics right because it seemed to me incredible, incredible huge numbers were becoming Christians every year. It's just that it's not happening here. You can go to India, you can go to Asia, you can go to Africa, you can go to South America. Hundreds of thousands of people are becoming Christians. Not just ordinary churchgoers. These people are filled with the Holy Spirit, they're radical, they're on fire for God, they hold prayer meetings all night, they pray for their neighbors, they go preach to their neighbors. Everybody's getting saved. There's revival in Brazil right now. There's revival in many nations across Africa right now. There's revival in China right now. Hundreds of thousands per year coming to the Lord in China. The government, of course, doesn't approve. It doesn't stop anything. In fact, it speeds it up. I wish the government didn't approve of us and then maybe we'd get a few more things right. What is it going to take? What is it going to take for us to start seeing those kind of moves of God because, you know, we have prophecies coming out our ears. I would dare say we're the most prophesied-over people on the face of the planet. If I had a dollar for every prophecy, I'd be a wealthy man. I'm not talking about prophecies I've made, I'm talking about the ones I've heard. Here from, you know, from America, the prophetic movement has risen up. I've been a part of that movement for a long time. Prophetic movement has risen up. Prophets have arrived telling us, praise God, the harvest is coming. Well, I want to say the harvest already began and we're starting, if we've got any sense, to get worried that we're about to miss it. And what follows that harvest? Could it be that Jesus returns at the end of that harvest? Isn't there that lament that goes in the Bible that says something like this? The summer has passed, the harvest has ended, and we are not saved. Don't you remember that? There's a scripture in the Old Testament that talks about that. Summer has passed, the harvest has ended, and we are not saved. You know, Jesus, when he came, this is a shocking fact, but it's absolutely true. Jesus, when he came, aimed his entire ministry at the poor. I just wonder why he did that. Because you would think if you were going to start a movement that was going to impact the earth, you know what the devil does when he's starting a movement? He normally goes for the influential people and the people with some money and power to get things done. So he influences politicians and movie executives and people in positions of power and influence. That's what the devil does because he thinks to himself, and he's quite right, that that's the way you get ahead in the world. You don't go down and find a few fishermen fishing on the side of a lake in the forgotten backwater of Israel and say, you guys are going to be my apostles to the world. You know, the devil doesn't think that way. And it does him well, you know, this theory that he has of using the rich and the powerful. But I want to say to you that Jesus has always done the opposite of that. Always. And he continues to do it today. And what I fear is this, is that we've become too rich and happy and comfortable for God. Is that possible? See, Jesus was born in a stable. Born in a stable and had to be sat inside the feeding trough of animals when he was born. And he spent his entire life with guys that had barely any money. And sometimes they'd pretty much almost starve if they didn't go catch some fish that day because they didn't have the savings and they weren't wealthy people. And they simply could not afford our $15 and $20 books at the Christian bookstore. They simply didn't ever come out with that stuff. It was beyond their realm of imagining that such a Christianity would arise that would have entire Walmart-type bookstores at their disposal full of Christian doctrines and Christian this and Christian that. Such a thought in Africa today is beyond their realms of imagining. I've got a friend who visits Africa. He says the pastors that he preaches to, he gathers pastors to preach to them. He says the pastors that he preaches to are so poor that if he gives them a book, which he has to do, none of them can afford to buy the books, he says when he gives the book to them, they treasure it. In fact, he says sometimes they hold a special ceremony because it's so special to them that someone has come from overseas and is giving them a book. And they'll hold a special ceremony where all the pastors are called out by name to receive their book. That's how special it is to them, you see. Because they're living in the real world. They're living in the world where Jesus, who said, I've come to preach the gospel to the poor. He actually said that. In Luke 4, I believe it is, he's quoting, of course, the Old Testament to heal the brokenhearted, to set at liberty those that are captives, and to open the prison doors. And then at the very end of Matthew, when he's talking about how the world is going to be judged, he's saying, how are they going to be judged? Are they going to be judged by their doctrines? You know, I'm a strong believer in doctrine, but I want to tell you that judgment ain't about doctrine. It's not what they believe that they are judged by. What did he say to them? He says, you who are blessed are my father. Come over here to the right-hand side. But those goats, you will be lost in eternal darkness. And they're saying, but Lord, but Lord. You know, in other words, they're calling him Lord. They're calling him Lord. They know him as Lord. But you see, he's saying to them, but I was hungry. You gave me nothing to eat. I was in prison. You didn't visit me. I was, I had no clothes. You didn't clothe me. I had no house to live in. You didn't house me. You're gone, away into everlasting darkness, prepared for the devil and his angels, says Jesus. The entire judgment is about how we treat the poor. The entire judgment is about how we treat the poor. And if we get ourselves in front of Jesus on that day, us rich, fat Americans and Westerners and New Zealanders are going to be in terrible, terrible trouble. Because we simply don't exist in that world. We've created Disneyland and we live in it. We don't even know what we have. We don't know what it is to exist in that life. And therefore, we don't know revival. Because in those lands, they're the very people that Jesus always came to. And there's pouring out after pouring out of the Holy Spirit, right through those nations. And it ain't here. I have a very, very sneaking suspicion that it has a lot to do with that. Because what happens when you do have money? You just become comfortable. What happens when you have money? You don't live together sharing stuff because you just don't have to. We can all afford our own car. We can all afford our own house. We don't even have to get together apart from once a week. We don't rely on each other. You look at the early church and it says they gathered their possessions. They had all things in common. Why is it good for poor people to have all things in common? Well, I tell you why. It's because when you're poor, you just don't have hardly anything. And so when you're sharing stuff, it's such a bonus, such a fantastic way of living as a family, of a communal family together. We can't even see that. We can't even see it. We're so individualistic. We have our own little castles and we live in them. We spend $200,000 on those things. $200,000 is what we'll spend. You know, every day there's 20,000 children dying around the world of starvation and preventable disease. Every day, 20,000 children. And we spend $200,000 on a house. We just don't know what we're doing, do we? What did Jesus say to that rich young ruler? The rich young ruler comes to Jesus. Actually, we didn't even know that he was a ruler. It just says a rich young man comes to Jesus. He says, I keep all of your commandments. I keep all the commandments of God since I was a kid. And what more will it take for me to inherit eternal life? And what does Jesus say to that guy? He says to him, I tell you what you lack. He says, sell what you have and give to the poor. Then you'll have treasure in heaven. Come take up your cross and follow me. And it says that rich young man, he went away sad because he had many possessions. Doesn't that just describe us? You know, it doesn't describe the Africans. It doesn't describe most of the world. We're in the rich 10%. We're the rich young man. And we will not get rid of our possessions. In fact, what we'd rather do is this, is create a doctrine where we can have mammon and Jesus too. Rather than get rid of our stuff, which is what the Bible clearly says to do. You know, Jesus actually said these words. He said, blessed be ye poor for yours is the kingdom of heaven. Luke chapter 6. People say, oh no, no, wasn't that poor in spirit? No, go read it. The Matthew one says poor in spirit. The Luke one says simply this, blessed be ye poor for yours is the kingdom of heaven. And then it goes on to say, woe unto you that are rich. You have already received your reward. Woe unto you that are rich. What did James say? Weep and howl, you rich men, for the miseries that have come upon you. You have gathered together gold for the last days. But we don't apply that kind of stuff to us. But I tell you, there ain't nobody else in the world to apply it to. We're the rich 10% of the earth. What are we doing? What kind of church do we have? What does this go to on Sunday in a big building and everybody claps their hands and the preacher gets up and gives the usual flaming, lukewarm discussion of the day and we kind of live in this fairy world of quasi-Christianity. What is that thing? Because I tell you, when I look in the New Testament, I don't see it there at all. I think we just invented it. I look in the New Testament struggling in vain to find anything that resembles what we call church. I struggle to find any resemblance to anything we do in there. We're just rich, pampered fat cats. That's what we are. The whole earth knows it except us. You go all around the earth and you say, who are the rich people in the world? And they say, oh, they're those people in America who make the movies. Why aren't they making movies in Africa? They can't even afford the film. They couldn't even begin to buy half a day in Hollywood. They have no way of doing it. Why does America make all the movies? America is the only country that can afford it. You tell me who the rich young man is in the parable, and I'll tell you what Jesus is telling us to do because then he goes straight on after that, says the disciples are very shocked. The disciples are very shocked and they say to Jesus, looking at this young man departing away, Jesus has just sent this guy away. And Jesus' disciples are standing there, they say, who then can be saved? Because this is a decent young man that you just sent away. That's what they think to themselves. Who then can be saved? If this rich, decent, law-abiding young man can't be saved, who will? Jesus says to them, listen, I tell you, I want to say something to you. It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to inherit the kingdom of God. Now, a lot of people make a little parable out of that. They say, oh yeah, Jesus didn't really mean that. He had some little thought in mind there. And they say, you know, needle's eye means something, right? I tell you what, he wasn't meaning a parable. He was just saying it's almost impossible for them to make it in. It's almost impossible. And he makes this statement immediately after he says, but with God all things are possible. With God all things are possible. I've got a friend who makes a statement when he's preaching on this topic. And he says, you know, that must be the greatest miracle then if Jesus is laying that kind of emphasis. He just about says, that must be almost harder than getting a blind man to see. If Jesus is saying this, then it's almost impossible for a rich guy to enter the kingdom of God. But with God, God can do it. He can make it happen. How does he make it happen? Well, we just saw what Jesus said to that guy. He said, sell what you have. Give to the poor, you'll have treasure in heaven. Come take up your cross and follow me. What did the disciples have to do to follow Jesus? Were they allowed to keep what they had? Or did they have to leave it all and follow him? I tell you, it says he walked up to them. I don't know even how well they knew him. He said, Andrew or Peter or whoever. He said, follow me. Says they dropped everything they had. They dropped it and walked after him. Jesus says in Luke chapter 14, I believe it is. Unless a man gives up all that he has, he cannot be my disciple. Unless a man gives up all that he has, he cannot be my disciple. You can see why the man with the many possessions walks away sad, can't you? Because if we're having to toss up all of our stuff to enter the kingdom of God, we have to actually give it away. If that was the requirement of entering church on Sunday, I tell you what, there wouldn't be many Americans in church. There wouldn't be many New Zealanders in church. We would have to, in fact, we'd have to do something drastic because I think, quite honestly, there'd be almost no one there. If that was our criteria, if we actually said to our rich fat cat culture that is so pleasure-seeking and has no idea how saturated and pleasure-seeking we are, but if we actually said to them, you know, in order to come into the church, you know what you've got to do, don't you? We do what Jesus said to do, which is sell everything and give to the poor. And then we have treasure in heaven. You know, we build up our bank account up in heaven, but, of course, we have less down here because that's what Jesus said for his disciples to do. But if any pastor gets up and dares preach anything remotely like that, of course, we'd sack him the following week. And if we didn't do it, the elders on the board would do it because, you know, they all have businesses, right? You know how you get elected to the board of elders in our day? It's not because you're a spiritual giant. It's because you have a business and you're making a million bucks a year. That's how you get elected, man. In fact, if you can find a guy like that, I don't even care. He can even be a closet Satanist. But if he comes in tithing and he's got a million-dollar income, I'm telling you, they will make that guy an elder within two months. I will almost guarantee it. If he says Jesus a few times and pays 10% on his $1 million a year, I tell you, wow, we couldn't make that guy an elder fast enough, could we? What do we exist for? Who are we serving? Didn't Jesus say that if you try and serve mammon and God, he said that's impossible. You've got to serve one or the other. Why is it that we think in our culture that it's acceptable to serve both? Why do we teach our kids how to make money, how to get a good career, how to go to college and get good marks, not for any other reason apart from this, that they get a good job that makes $50,000 a year? That's our idea of successful children, isn't it? Isn't our idea of successful children, if one of our kids becomes a lawyer or a doctor or an engineer, isn't that, for most of us in the church even, our idea of good stuff for our children to be? Isn't that? What are we sacrificing our children to? Isn't that mammon? Didn't we just sacrifice our children to mammon? What are we teaching them? What are our values? Who do we serve? What Christianity is this? Where did we get it? It doesn't exist in the Bible. It's the very opposite of what Jesus stood for. None of what we do is in there. We're fools. We're blind. The only people with eyesight are the poor who are in revival right now. They're all over the earth. There are millions of them. The estimate given in Megashift was that there are 700 million revival-type Christians in the earth today. Almost none of them are in the western countries. Almost none. In fact, he was not able to give one example of revival occurring in our nations. He was not able. The entire book is about the third world. It's about China. It's about South America. It's about Asia. It's about India. They're getting persecuted, man. They're getting killed. My friend who travels overseas to these countries, he said he was up in northern India. He said even the pastors up there, this is how dangerous it was for them, he said even the pastors over there carry Uzis and semi-automatic rifles and stuff like that because anybody who is not carrying a weapon is almost instantaneously dead. And so he said it was the weirdest thing, but they came into the conference he was holding and they just piled their weapons up at the back of the room. Huge stack of weapons. We have no idea what that's like. I don't know what Jesus meant when he says, when you go, take your sword with you. And then there's another place where he says, when you go, don't take your sword with you. So I guess they must have interpreted the former scripture and left the other one alone. However, I digress. We really don't know that we live in Disneyland. We really don't. Okay, we've talked a little bit about what real Christianity is. I want to say to you that there are even more serious deficiencies that we have in our Christianity than even that. And I count that as pretty much a one strike and you're dead. That one that I just spoke about then because we get to the judgment of the sheep and the goats. Here we are at the judgment of the sheep and the goats, which is Matthew 25 is basically closing out the entire age. Jesus is saying at the end of the age, here's the judgment that will happen. And we go to that judgment, we find a simple division being made. The sheep on one side and the goats on the other. And in order to be a sheep, what do you have to have lived your life doing? Who do you have to have lived your life for? What kind of person do you have to be? You need to go and read Matthew 25 if you're in perplexity about that because it's very, very clear. He says, if you did not do this to the least of my brethren, you've not done it unto me. He said, if you did not feed them, if you did not clothe them, if you did not visit them in prison, if you did not visit them when they're sick, if you did not house them. Now we have millions and millions of Christians around the earth who are living on $1 or $2 a day. And they are starving. And we're doing nothing for them. We're living lifestyles of the kings of old. We seriously do. They would look at many of our vehicles just parked in the parking lot and say, that is the best chariot that I ever saw. And if I could trade in my best for that, I would in an instant. Because you people have riches I never dreamt of. And you live in castles of which the richness of the fabrics and the richness of everything you live in is so incredible to me. Many of the kings of the earth would say those things to us if they could come visit us for a day. Do you realize we're the top 10% of the earth, we're the princes and kings of the planet. What are we doing with it all? What will Jesus say to us on the day of the judgment of the sheep and the goats? What will he say? Okay, so that's Christianity 101. And I want to move on to Christianity 102, which is, why do we tell people, let me ask this question, why do we tell people when they're coming into our churches and it's time for them to become a Christian, why do we say things like this? Just pray this little prayer after me. Or just open the little doorway in your heart and ask Jesus to come in and stuff like that. Can I just ask a very, very simple question? Is any of that in the Bible? I think that's a fairly, fairly simple question and one that ought to be asked, don't you? Because simply put, we tell hundreds of millions of people to do that. And we say, if you do that little thing, you're a Christian and you're going to make it into heaven. Then we make it even worse than that. And we go, you know what? We just came out with this fantastic doctrine called this. Once saved, always saved. So all you've got to do now is pray the little prayer, which doesn't exist in the Bible, and then you can't even lose your salvation after that. Nothing you do. You can sin even as much as you like. No, we do not say that. But at least pay your tithes and you'll probably make it into the kingdom of God when you die. Is that pretty much? Yeah, that's pretty good. I like that. That's good. But I just want to say this to you, that ask Jesus into your heart is not found once in Scripture. And nobody ever, ever, not even one time prayed the little prayer. And the entire book of Acts, which is full of thousands of people becoming Christians, they did nothing like that, and nothing approaches it in Scripture. We just made it up. So not only do we not live like Christians, most of us in the churches of today probably never were Christians, didn't become Christians at any moment, but are being falsely assured that we're okay. Falsely assured that we're okay. Can we just turn to the book of Acts for a second? Let's look in Acts chapter 2 at the very first occasion of people becoming Christians, and maybe we'll start to see what happened there. See, I don't know about you, but I would like to think this. I'd like to think this, that when we got up to stand in front of Jesus, that He'd be able to ask us some basic questions, and we'd be able to answer those with a straight face, as though we do know what we're talking about, such as, how does someone become a Christian, and what is a Christian? I would have thought, I don't know if I'm just stupid, but I would have thought that that was fairly basic to know, and if we don't know it, we're in a hell of a trouble. I would imagine that we've got a lot of problems, if that particular question is still not clear, and yet, I want to say this to you, whenever we answer that question today, we always, always answer it wrong. We haven't got a clue how they became Christians, and we become Christians, nothing like them, and we don't know what happened in the book of Acts, we don't study it or do it. Our church could not, could not be further from the book of Acts, if it tried. We are so far from the book of Acts, I once went through point by point through Acts chapter 2, where it describes the early church, and I could not find one similarity, not one. There's an entire huge verse after verse after verse describing the Acts church, and I found not one point of similarity. So, did we invent another religion? Why do we call what we're doing Christianity? Why? Why do we say we're disciples of Jesus, when we live nothing like it? What did Jesus say? Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say? He said, these people draw nigh unto me with their mouths, and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Didn't he say that? Acts chapter 2, verse 37. This is the very first time that untold people became Christians, or that anybody became Christians in the book of Acts, and this pattern is repeated throughout the book of Acts, of people becoming Christians this way, and we never do this, that I've seen, except the very rare occasion. Okay, Acts chapter 2, verse 37. When the people heard this, now this was Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost. When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart. Okay, let's just stop there for a second. How many times are people cut to the heart by the preaching of today? Well, I want to put it to you, never. Never are they cut to the heart. In all revivals throughout history, it's a prerequisite when you're becoming a Christian that you are cut to the heart, because then you'll truly repent. And on the day of Pentecost and throughout Acts, we see people being cut to the heart by the preaching. We see the power of God falling on people. We see them crying and being broken about their sins. But I'm just digressing there. But we don't even have that, you know. We don't have hardly any preachers. We have a lot of preachers who can entertain us and tell warm stories and give us homilies, and we have the best. I'll tell you what we do have the best of. We have the best motivational speakers on the planet. Oh, yes, we do. We have guys that can tell you how to have seven steps to your best life now. We do have that. We have that side down. We have the Carnegie course on how to win friends and influence people, that side of things. Oh, yes, we do have that. Unfortunately, that ain't in here, because what Jesus is interested in is not seven steps to your best life now. He's interested in you taking up the cross upon which you are going to suffer in following Him, which is the exact opposite message to that. So when we say that we have the best motivational speakers on earth and they're parading around as ministers of the gospel, I would dare say that those people are, for want of a better word, false prophets, because they ain't preaching what's in here. I'm digressing. Verse 38. Peter replied to them. They were cut to the heart. They said to Peter and the other apostles, Brothers, what shall we do? There's thousands of these guys. They're all asking, what shall we do? Peter replied, Repent. That's number one. Repent. And be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. There's three things there. Repenting, getting baptized in water, and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. Do we find these three things throughout the book of Acts? Well, yes, we do. I'm not going to jump to every one of them. If you want to note down where they are, I'm just going to tell you a little bit about them. Okay, if you recall, what happens when Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch are driving down the road together? What does the guy say? Does he say, right, now it's time to pray a little prayer asking Jesus into your heart? No. The guy says, there's water. What's stopping me getting baptized? Now, how come he said that and he didn't say what we say? Well, you've just got to realize these guys were scriptural and we ain't. That's pretty much it. I'll come back to my point again and say there is no instance anywhere of anyone doing anything like what we do. There's nobody coming down the front with all the music playing. Certainly not this business. Okay, everybody eyes shut and head bowed. Okay, now if you want to follow Jesus just like quickly slip up your hand and nobody's looking, nobody's looking and yeah, alright. Praise God. Now, not only is that completely west of what we're talking about, it's literally nowhere. The other stuff that we do where you come down the front and you sign the little card, yes, I want to follow Jesus, and you pray the two-line prayer, dear Jesus, dear Jesus, I want to ask you, I open my heart to you, I want to make you Lord of my... I open my heart to you... None of it. None of it. It doesn't exist. It's a figment of our imagination. Why is it serious? Well, because we tell people to get saved that way. That's why it's serious. If we're telling people to get saved a way that ain't in the Bible, I want to say to you, we're false evangelists. We're false prophets. We're the worst people. We're the worst church in the world if we're telling people this basic question and we're telling them wrong. How do we get saved, sir? What do I have to do? These people are crying out to Peter and the apostles. What must we do? Please tell us. We want to follow Jesus. We want to become His people. We want to become children of God. Repent. Be baptized. Get filled with the Holy Spirit. This is what happened on day one every single time without exception. Could you go anywhere in the New Testament and find a person that claimed to be a Christian who hadn't had that happen to them? Well, no, you can't. Because every single one of them did that on the first day. They repented deeply of their sins. What does repent mean? It means you're sorry you're brokenhearted over your sin and you cry out to God for forgiveness and you confess your sins to God. And then you get baptized in water. Why do you get baptized in water? Romans 6 says, it's the death of your old life, the burial of your old life, so you can rise into a new life in Christ. And why do you get filled with the Holy Spirit? Because, I tell you why, without holiness, no man shall see the Lord, so I need the Holy Spirit in me, filling my life. When I was being raised up in the Baptist churches of my youth, I was not told that. And so it took me until I was 17 years old. Even if that told me, I wouldn't have listened. I didn't want to listen until I was about 17. Suddenly God grabbed my heart and I wanted to listen. You know, I know that I was not capable of living a holy life until I got filled with the Holy Spirit. And I spoke in tongues and everything, just like they did in the Bible. But that wasn't the major thing. The major thing was this, I was filled with the holiness of God. It says, the love of God is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit. I was filled with the love of God. Instantly, bam! And suddenly I could live like a Christian. Suddenly I could walk in that thing which I saw in the Bible and had never been able to do. Never, never. I lived my teenage years in utter depression. And every time I went near church, it never helped me because I could not live that way. I could not live that way. The Holy Spirit is what enables you to live that way. So why do we see them every time, I'm talking about every time, we're jumping say to Acts chapter 8. We've got the Ethiopian eunuch getting baptized. Then Philip is preaching in Samaria. They all repent. They all get baptized by Philip and the apostles come down and pray for them immediately to get filled with the Holy Spirit. Then we jump over to the next occasion when lots of people are getting saved. Cornelius' household, Acts chapter 10 and 11. What happens there? Peter's preaching to them. The Holy Spirit comes down on them and they all get filled with the Holy Spirit and he commands them to get baptized immediately. Then we jump over, say to the next people that are all getting saved. The Ephesians, Acts chapter 19. You guys haven't been baptized properly. You got baptized under John the Baptist ministry. That's not going to do. He baptizes them straight away. It says they got filled with the Holy Spirit and all started speaking in tongues and prophesying. Acts chapter 19. Is there an occasion when anybody does any of this give your heart to the Lord stuff? No, there is not. In fact, if you do a search in a concordance for the words give your heart to the Lord, you'll find it literally nowhere. It does not exist. Ask Jesus into your heart. Nowhere it does not exist. They pull a couple of scriptures out of context, one from Revelation, one from Romans and that's their idea of proof. And you go to the book of Acts and you see time and time again proof that they're wrong. That these guys don't know what they're talking about. That we have invented for ourselves a gospel that is simply false through and through. And we think we live in Christianity. We really do. We are the most deceived people on the planet. We ignore the commandments of Jesus in regard to money and mammon and we totally ignore the book of Acts and really the thrust of the New Testament when it comes to getting saved. And we think that when Jesus opens the pearly gates or however we're really going to find it up there that we're still going to be able to march right in and Jesus doesn't mind any of this stuff and it's all okay and it's all going to turn out okay. Well, I want to say to you, He said this, He said, Broad is the road that leads to destruction and many there be that go down that road. And straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it. Few there be that find it. Are us 10% fat cats going to be in the few? When we ignore the obvious commands of Jesus every day of our lives, when we don't even get people saved right. In fact, every time we tell them, we tell them falsely. Is Jesus going to welcome us in or are we on the broad road to destruction? Come on people. Where are we at in our Christianity in the United States? In New Zealand, Australia, Canada, England, Europe. I was in Switzerland, you know, a few months ago. They hardly know what a poor person is. Banking center of the world. It's like 400 miles across or something, a tiny little country full of rich people. You know, more or less we're like that too. Sure, we can go into our slums. Even our slum dwellers are rich compared with, you know, 75% of the world. Most of them, if you could tell them what conditions were like in our jails, that come over here and get arrested just because they can live high on the hog in our prison system, way more than they can live in their little huts around the earth. And they're earning one and two dollars a day. They're on starvation level diets. And many of them are our brothers and sisters. Many, many multitudes, millions are our brothers and sisters in Christ. That's the way they live every day. There is no escape. Look, we badly need to do a few things. One of the basic things we need to do is we need to read the Gospels and actually look at what Jesus said and do it. And then we need to read the book of Acts and look what the church did and do that. Because I want to put it to you that people who call themselves Christians and haven't done those two basic things when they get in front of Jesus are in terrible trouble. I just think it's obvious, you know. I just don't think we're going to survive. I think we're not in revival for a reason. I think so many of our prophets telling us, hey, the glorious move of God is coming. You know, I'm sick to death of hearing it. Man, give me a word that will actually get me there. Stop talking about it. It's coming, it's coming, it's coming. Stop telling every pastor of every church you go to that they're a great man of God and they're going to be apostolically used in the last great move Just about repeat it all because it's so obvious and so commonplace for every prophet in America to go around doing that stuff. And they even do it to guys that are living in adultery and are about to be discovered. But you'll find the prophets arrive and what do they say to the head pastor? They say, oh, you're a great man of God. Oh, you're going to go to the nations. Why? Because we live in Disney World. That's why. And our prophets are Disneyland prophets. That's why. And they tickle our ears every day. And we buy their tapes and their CDs and their books because that's what we're trained to do. What did the real prophets do in the Bible? Not in Disneyland. What did the real prophets do? They cried out, repent. They said, you cannot live the way you are living. You cannot go to church on Sunday and abandon God the rest of the week. You cannot serve God and mammon. You are so, so in danger and the judgment of God is coming. That's what all the real prophets did. What did the false prophets do? Peace, peace, they cried. Everything's going to be wonderful. Oh, you're going to be blessed, so blessed by God. Oh, you're such wonderful people. Oh, your leaders are going to be leading the nations. We're far outstripped in every way. Overseas, the leaders are giants in the faith. Many of them have the marks of torture in their bodies. We have nothing like what they have. Our leaders are dwarfs. Our leaders are pygmies and the giants are in the third world. That's the facts of the matter and I will trust a prophet from India and a prophet from Africa before I'll trust a prophet from America any day of the week. In fact, it's got to the point with me, having published, you know, I'm an internet publishing in a big way and having published the words that have come out now for 10 years, I'm thoroughly, thoroughly sick to death of it all. Thoroughly sick to death of it all because so much of it is so self-serving and bless me, bless me, bless me and it's the very opposite of what we need to hear and it's the opposite of what the prophets of the Bible spoke and I don't want to hear another word. And if you've got a book for sale, pal, and you've got a nice CD pack for 60 bucks, well, you can just keep it because if I get my hands in it, it just might accidentally tip into the fire because that's how much I appreciate it and I'm sorry, that's how I feel. So, am I really part of the prophetic movement anymore? Well, maybe I'm not, you know. Maybe I ain't. I believe we need prophets who speak the truth. A cutting word that will pierce people's hearts, bring them to repentance, bring them out of the Disneyland delusion that we are all living in and set us free so we can really have a revival. That's what I believe in. I believe in apostles who speak the truth, not some trumped-up pastor who's put apostle on his name tag because it will impress his congregation a little bit better and so he can get speaking engagements and hand out little cards that say, Apostle John Smith. Well, that's impressive. I can really picture the Apostle Paul doing that. What were the things that the Apostle Paul had? He had scars all over his body and he didn't need a flaming little card. He didn't need a flaming little card. Mm-mm. False prophets and apostles abound. Our movement, our charismatic movement, which used to be so full of promise and so full of the excitement of God, has just grown old, grown weeds. The weeds have turned into trees. They've sprung up and choked the good fruit and we have hardly anything left, and that is the facts of the matter. One of these days, God is going to find a group in America who really believe what Jesus said, who really do what the Book of Acts Church did, and there's going to be a revolution. It won't just be a revival. It'll be a revolution, and praise God, I really hope to be there to see it. I really do. I have hopes for the young. I'm involved with a loud band of young musicians and I'm involved with youth ministry these days more than I have in the past, and I have hope for the young. I do. I have hope for the youth because I think that only maybe they are extreme enough to embrace the Christianity of the Bible. That's just being blunt. I think that a group of young people, a generation that invents extreme sports, that wants to go out and virtually kill themselves by flying around on motorcycles and hanging from cliffs and, you know, base jumping and all those kind of things, I figure if they're into extreme sports, maybe they'll like extreme Christianity. But the problem is that we never ever have preached it to them. Not once in all my years of going to church when I was a kid, not once in all the years since of listening to the prophetic movement have I really heard extreme Christianity like Jesus preached it. And I think if we could just get that and give it to the youth of today, we might be on to something before the harvest has ended. That's my hope. We're going to stand and pray together. Let's do that. I am going to ask you, and I want you to think about this, most people respond to these kind of things mindlessly. We just do what the preacher tells us to do. And we all, you know, you hear those preachers and they go, everybody repeat this scripture after me. Everybody mindlessly repeats the scripture after me. You know, I don't want you to do that today. What I do want to do is everybody stand. The next part is simply this. If you want to respond to the message that I've brought tonight and you want to say amen to it and you literally want to, before God, say, God, I want to live in that biblical Christianity that has been described tonight, at least in part, I've only done a part description, but you get the message. If that is the case, I want you to raise your hands to God while we're praying because this is going to be between you and Him. It's nothing to do with me. If you want to live in that biblical Christianity and leave behind the Christianity that you have been living in, whatever that has been, it may be good, it may be terrible, I don't know, but what I want to say is this. If you want to live in that biblical Christianity which involves a serious sacrifice and a serious dealing with God and a serious giving up and a serious taking up the cross, if you want to live in that that I've described all night tonight, I want you to raise your hands to God while we're praying. Everybody understand? And believe me, if you're not serious, I don't want you to do it. You can just close your eyes and pray along with us, but if you're serious, serious about it, raise your hands to God while we're praying. Okay, let's begin. Father God, I pray for every single person in this room, Father God, including myself and my family. God, that we would be brought into true biblical, book of acts Christianity. That we would not settle for what we've settled for. That we would not serve both you and mammon. That we would turn our backs on mammon and on materialism. That we would preach the opposite of what the world preaches to us about how it's desirable to have a nice big house and a new car. That we'd abandon it all because it's lies. And we'd start to live, God, the way that you call us to live. That Jesus always said his disciples were to live in. We want to live in that Christianity, God. I pray for everybody here that you'll reach down, Father. And if you're calling us into this Christianity, which I know you are, I pray, Father, that they might respond to you right now. That you will see a response. That those who are lifting their hands to heaven right now, responding to you, God. That you'll take them at their word. And that you will bring them into a new place. That they will live and walk before you in a new kind of Christianity that they've never experienced before. Father, I pray that as we just open our hearts to you right now, as we lift our hands to you, Father God, that you will bring us into that place, even though we scarcely know how to get there. We live saturated with mammon in our society. How do we even escape that? What have we got to do? How do we live? How do we become the book of Acts church? How do we do it? God, lead us on that path. All those who have their hands raised now, I pray, lead us on that path. Don't leave us bereft and wandering. God, lead us to revival. Lead us to revolution in the church. A great reformation like happened 500 years ago with Martin Luther God. Bring another reformation so that we are not stuck like this. We cannot live like this. God, please help us. I pray for every person in this room, even those who haven't responded. God, work in our hearts and our lives. Bring us into the real Christianity and take us out of the false. Take us out of the false, God. Every time we hear from now on the false thing, let it resonate within us. This is false. This is the junk. This is the Disneyland stuff. I can tell it now. I can hear it now. I can see what's false and what is true. God, bring us into the true thing. Make us real, real Christians, God. Real, real Christians. And when we get to that judgment, let us be counted as sheep, Father. Please make us sheep. God, we pray. Change and transform our lives. Let us become utterly yours in every aspect of our lives. Even the cultural aspects that we've so grown used to. We give you ourselves, Father, and surrender to you. In Jesus' mighty wonderful name. Amen. Amen.